Freefall
by Le'letha
Summary: ["Nightfall", Part 3] Once upon a time, a baby named Hiccup was taken from Berk and raised entirely as a dragon. Years later, he and Toothless brought war to the Queen of the Nest and peace to Berk, and took down Drago Bludvist as an encore. …This matters to Grimmel the Grisly. A lot.
1. Chapter 1

_**Freefall**_

_**Le'letha**_

**Summary: **["Nightfall", Part 3] Once upon a time, a baby named Hiccup was taken from Berk and raised entirely as a dragon. Years later, he and Toothless brought war to the Queen of the Nest and peace to Berk, and took down Drago Bludvist as an encore. …This matters to Grimmel the Grisly. A lot.

**Author's Note: **Ideally, _Freefall _should be read after _Nightfall_ and _Stormfall_.

_Updates weekly._

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_**Freefall, **_**Part One**

He rolls the vial across his fingers, spinning it slowly, watching the clear, thick liquid within slosh against the sides.

It catches the light from the candle sharing the table with him, sending slow flashes across the much-scarred wood, lighting up the worn, stained surface far more than flatters it. Through the liquid, as it flows, Grimmel can see the fire blazing in the hearth at the opposite end of the tavern's big common room, and a glimpse of the kitchen hearth-fire through the single inner door. Though many bodies stand between him and the flames, somehow every man and rough woman of them is a safe distance away.

Fools and barbarians all, but perhaps not quite that foolish, and their caution pleases him.

There's a slick muddiness to the liquid that betrays its true nature – not water, but venom powerful enough to kill every man in this room, held harmless behind glass as thin as a whisper, rare and valuable. Rarer still, with so much of it in his hands. He has tried many ways to keep this poison, but leather rots and metal wears. Left to sit, it rusts away all but dragon iron, turning the liquid an evil, bloody red. Poured away, it leaves behind a surface as bubbled as boiling stew.

And yet, the fragile glass remains untouched. Fascinating.

He uncorks the small vial, no longer than his shortest finger, and tips three drops – no more, just yet – into the mug of ale before him. Though long separated from its dragon, the vapors from the open vial still sting his nose, even beneath the rank stink of tired fishermen and hard-worked ships' crews. It winds its way under the sharp bite of charred meat left too long on the spit by the little tavern boy not tending it. It even cuts through the unwashed reek of the clump of yelling, mocking young barbarians shoving each other over the table one of them has just jumped up on, kicking out at noses and ears and horned helmets as he yells at them all to shut up and listen to his story, it's his _turn_.

Grimmel carefully replaces the heavily-waxed cork and tucks it away into his belt-pouch. More fool the light-fingered thief who tries to steal it from him, and he wishes them all the best as they die horribly.

He lifts the mug, and swirls the poisoned ale around three times one way, and three times another, waits for a count of three more, and then he drinks it down without hesitation.

He doesn't taste the poison. He doesn't have time. As the ale washes over it, his tongue goes numb, as if it were another creature sharing his jaw like a worm rooted in a fish's mouth. He feels it flow down his throat leaving locked-tight nothingness in its wake, and takes a deep breath on reflex and long habit. He must breathe, hard enough so that his body remembers what to do, or he will choke as his throat freezes.

It doesn't. Perhaps another drop of color leaches from his hair and his face, but he breathes. He lives another day to feel tendrils of cold ice thread their way through his chest, reaching for his lungs that fight against it and his heart that beats regardless. A shudder, so strong even his iron will cannot control it, rolls through his bones as if a dagger had struck deep into his chest.

Against it, Grimmel sets the memory of just that. Well, almost.

Once, and only once, he'd had a dragon had turn on him, its stinger raised and a snarl in its throat. Grimmel hadn't felt the bite of its needle-thin sting plunging beneath his breastbone so much as the impact of it, a dull blow as tail-tip and deadly venom had sunk into his flesh.

He remembers the way his breath had rushed out of him, a death-rattle he'd had no will to utter nor strength to stop. He remembers how slowly it had happened, as he'd looked from the thick muscle of the dragon's tail to the torn threads of his tunic shredding, and how he'd had time to not only consider the flaws in his armor but design a new set that would protect him better.

He remembers the shouts and the scrambles of the few men he'd bothered to keep with him at the time. All in an instant, or so they'd said it had been later, he'd made a note of every face and plotted a course to the nearest port where he could get rid of them all, for they'd scrambled not to his defense, or to avenge him, but away.

And he'd looked up into the dragon's eyes, and seen the blind animal rage in a creature that had always bent its head and done his bidding before.

He sometimes likes to imagine its surprise when he'd fallen back from its sting, his body sliding to the deck, and stood back up with a sword in hand. Grimmel's strike had been truer, and the creature had died on his blade probably still wondering why its poison had failed it and its rebellion come to naught, even as its fellows had watched it die from behind glazed eyes.

Grimmel believes in knowing his enemy, even when that enemy stands at his side and pledges their alliance, or crouches at his feet and believes itself his servant.

Years ago, he'd heard a story of a king who feared poison, and who had turned his fear into a shield. Just as a child who feared water might wade into the ocean a step at a time, running from the big waves but returning again and again, until he no longer saw its dangers or felt its cold, the king had learned all he could of the poisons his treacherous court might use to kill him. He had taken sips from each every day, mixed them together and taught his body to bear them, until he could lace every meal with poison and eat it with a laugh as his enemies choked on the same meat.

Now that, Grimmel had thought with satisfaction as the tale-teller had moved on to wilder tales and newer songs, had been a man determined to die old and clever.

That night, he had set aside a single vial of venom from the dragons he'd hunted to capture rather than kill, even as he fed their own venom back to them. Alone in his cabin, locked away from any who might try to learn his secrets, he'd touched a single drop to the very tip of his tongue, a barrel of salt water at the ready to wash it from his mouth.

He'd nearly drowned himself in that barrel, the first time, first in his haste to rinse the dreadful killing numbness away, and then as his arms shook and threatened to drop him into that water, with his lungs seizing away all their air.

But he'd spat salt onto the deck of his cabin, and resolved that he, too, would die old and clever, laughing at his baffled foes.

Some things can be borne, with practice.

Others cannot.

Grimmel knows all too well that poison is always poison, no matter how long you must drink it, even when you know nothing else, no matter how numb you get.

But the day you get to spit it all back out, right in the faces of the ones who told you poison was water, and watch them choke on what they'd forced on you – _that _is worth it all.

This is an old lesson, and one that brings a taste far fouler than the venom's aftertaste to his throat – the sour ale does nothing at all to sweeten it. Through the ale, he can still somehow taste sodden marshes, ever-changing but always the same. He can taste the smoke of slow-burning peat, cut through and by no means improved by the goats that ate everything, got everywhere, and smelled like it.

He can almost hear the whisper of the swamplands, how the reeds and swamp grasses and rushes had rubbed together under the wind and the scythes of the people who waded through the brackish surface of the far-flung marsh, chopping down reeds that always grew back.

He no longer dreams of the birds' calls that came back from every backwater and trailing tree, screaming at each other and the dragonets no bigger than they were. It has been a lifetime since he heard those oily-feathered, sad little knots of claw and flesh shriek, diving to the attack upon the muddy children who scooped eggs from their nests to suck. Not even the night had silenced them, or the frogs that took up the chorus until long after the moon had set.

The people who lived in the marsh and on it, who had become part of it, had claimed not to hear them anymore.

His name had been something else then, something he no longer claims as his own and that no living throat has spoken since he was a boy.

The boy who would one day be Grimmel had _always _heard them.

He had known there had to be something more. He had known he wasn't, that he _couldn't _be, one of the shuffling reedmen who'd lived all their lives looking _down_.

Dull people, in a wet, slow world, never looking beyond their own slowly moss-greening toes, not even when ships would sail into the delta where brackish marsh met clean salt sea to trade for bushel upon bushel upon _bushel _of rushes and reeds. Never asking where the ships came from, or where they went, or what stories the people who sailed them might have to tell.

Every day like the next, and no one else but him to _scream_.

His father – Grimmel can no longer remember the man's face, and is glad of it – had struck him once, not so much for asking questions of adults who had real work to do and no time for curious children, but for pushing the other children to ask too.

"Why? Why? Why?" that boy had demanded, and "What if?" He'd spun tales wilder than that young barbarian in the brighter-lit center of the tavern could ever have dreamed of, desperately inventing flesh and bright skin onto the bones of his narrow, damp world. He'd only been trying to get the other children to wonder what else the world might have to offer them, even as their necks began to bend.

His father's blow had landed so hard that he'd heard his jaw shatter, silencing him for so long that all his stories and all his questions were forgotten, all the sparks he'd tried to light drowned out. And from that day forward, while he sipped the dregs of cooling, thin broth and dreamed of the day he could unbind his face and speak again, he'd vowed to run, run, _run_ and never return.

Nothing, it seemed, could drive those people – they were never _his _people – to look up. Not even dragons.

They wouldn't even fight.

Even Grimmel couldn't have found anything interesting in the little marsh dragonets, no bigger than his father's fist, their scales the dull mud-and-moss of the swamp they fluttered and leaped through and dived into. They peeped like frogs and shrieked like birds, and ate both, and stole everything their little claws could grab, from a set-down scrap of bread to a dropped reed longer than their own wingspans.

The people of the marsh swatted them aside and ignored their screams of outrage, and barely had to tell their children not to follow the dancing lights they saw over the brackish water at night. There was no mystery there: no mischievous imps, no beckoning trolls promising treasure for the daring child to find. There was only the flickering flash of the lights the little dragonets held in their jaws to lure fish.

But the ones that came from the sky – oh, those were another creature entirely.

…or were they?

Beasts that breathed flame hotter than the forge-fire as their smith pounded out bog-iron into kettles. All power and menace as one banked in mid-air and dived at a stray goat that had ventured beyond the tree-cover. Its claws and fangs had gleamed sharper than any scythe, until it had been knocked aside by another racing it to the kill. They'd tumbled together, writhing and shoving, as Grimmel watched, mouth open without a thought for the missing child's tooth that, moments before, had been his proudest story.

Somehow both beasts had pulled out of their fall, only _instants _before they'd both struck the ground, and soared away. He still believes he'd felt his hair, already losing its color, ruffle as they'd split the air right over his head.

He'd been close enough to touch, and if he had only reached out –! Ah, he'd felt as if he could have grabbed one by a wingtip and pulled it from the sky.

And he'd turned to follow them, and seen the air filled with wings that seemed to blot out the sun, glaring eyes and flashing scales, descending upon the village to take anything they could grab – no different from the little dragonets after all!

He still remembers the way the thought had hit him, a _thud _no different from the Deathgripper's needle-sharp stinger striking into his chest so many years later. For a moment, he'd understood something.

Something new.

Something he could tell _everyone_.

Something that would change the world.

And in response? In the face of the most interesting thing to happen in that gap-toothed boy's entire life?

Why, the village chief – no warrior, no wise man, no singer, no hunter, no more than the oldest man to still possess his wits – had simply ordered everyone to their dugout huts and bid them slam the door. Turn their backs. Close their eyes. Wait for the dragons to tire of sod that would not burn and herds they could not get to, for the goats – _the goats! _– had the wit and the favor to hide themselves in the only stone building not yet sunk into the marsh.

The boy who was not yet Grimmel had crouched there in damp darkness, bursting with the new thing he had to say. He'd listened to the beasts roar their hunger, as their heavy paws beat a strange new rhythm into the trodden-down earth and the forever-sinking boards laid down to bridge the wettest corners of the village. He'd listened to a couple of the interchangeable, short-lived, fast-fading babies whimper, not even enough spirit to work up a decent wail, and heard them be hushed regardless.

And yet he'd opened his mouth anyway, again and again, and each time the most important thing he'd ever had to say had been knocked back down into his chest with a backhanded blow and a growl of _shush!_

In the last light before the single candle was snuffed out to save the thickening air, he'd seen his father staring at him, cold and flat and judging, daring him to say a word, and he'd felt a roar and rage of his own burning deep in his gut.

"Might as well shout at the thunderstorm," dull-eyed men and beaten-flat women had told him, when he'd said that big dragons were no different from little dragons, and they'd never sat still to be pestered by _those_, had they?

He'd demanded to know why they didn't _do _something, all of them. Why couldn't they take up their scythes and kitchen knives and demand swords in trade instead of apples? Why couldn't they lie in wait and drive the dragons away when they returned? Weren't all these so-called older and wiser adults telling him that the dragons always did?

"Might as well fight the sun," he'd been told.

And one day, when he'd been no more than a boy of fourteen or so, full of frustration and anger and the need to do something, anything, more than only what everyone else did, what he'd done all his life and would have to do forever, he'd looked around and seen only dead people.

Corpses, walking: pale as death as the marsh rotted them, empty eyes and blank minds, backs bent and hands in the wet earth, fingers twisted as woven sedge-cord.

He'd tasted the poison that was killing him too, and he'd spat it out, and he'd run.

And as the last of the Deathgripper venom seeps through his body, finally reaching and numbing the wounds he couldn't be happier to bear, that he would have willingly inflicted on himself for the joy they've brought him, Grimmel savors every step he's taken since.

The dregs of the ale linger in the bottle of his rough wood-and-leather mug, and for a moment Grimmel contemplates leaving them there for some unwary scavenger to lap up thinking himself very fortunate, or casting them aside. The clotted rushes beneath his feet would sop it up and never notice – they've clearly done just that many times before.

But no. If he means to master _four _drops someday – so that he might laugh in the face of the next dragon to harden itself to its own venom and turn on him, or the next lackey of Svanhild's to think to earn her favor by poisoning the hunter who walks among armies and scoffs at them, and is not only tolerated anyway but listened to – then he must drink it all.

Grimmel picks up the mug again, and drinks the poison gladly.

Darkness pours over his vision for a moment, or perhaps it's only the candle guttering, blown into a stagger by the plate that's just soared over his head and smashed into the wall beyond. Scraps of what might have been cabbage, long ago, splatter and drip towards the ground. As Grimmel fights through the full-body tremble that it's a _blessing _to feel – if he's not strong enough to bear it, he'll never feel the venom kill him – he wrenches himself around to see where it came from, and possibly introduce the fool who _dares _throw something at Grimmel the Grisly to a better-aimed crossbow quarrel.

"Shut _up!_" the young barbarian with the close-cropped red hair is still shouting, pushing another young hothead onto the floor with a sneer, practically dancing on the table as he stomps a boot down hard on reaching fingers. "_I'm _telling it now! You want a story, huh? I've got one, and it's true, every word!"

The nearest exhausted drinker to Grimmel, who doubtless thinks himself very hidden and entirely alone in the shadows in the back of the room, sighs deeply and takes a deep draught from his own ale mug as if he doubts the table-climber's story already.

"Get off the table, kid," someone else, safely concealed in the crowd, jeers at him.

The barbarian turns as red as his hair, or at least what's left of it. Grimmel, no stranger to dragonfire, suspects the man had run afoul of an angry dragon at some point. No great surprise, as he understands that the Vikings of the north practically live for any fight they can get into. The redhead, now balling his hands into fists in a way that overemphasizes muscles he's clearly worked quite hard on, sounds like he belongs north of here.

"Who are you callin' _kid?!_" he demands. "Come out here and say that to my face if you dare! I'm the Chief of the Berserkers! I fight dragons with my bare hands! I can lift a yak over my head! I once caught a Skrill!"

"Come off it, Dagur," an equally young barbarian, but with tattoos across his cheeks that mark him as a herd-raider from the endless tundra, weeks east of here, calls over from the bar. His tone is amiable enough. "You did not."

"I did _so!_" apparently-Dagur declares gleefully, and launches into the story he'd been intending to tell all along. Or at least, there's probably a story under all the boasting about how great and clever and deranged he is.

Grimmel mostly believes that last bit.

The tale, however entertaining in its way, brings him no closer to the riddle he's come north to solve, even in the face of the greatest stroke of fortune he's had since the first time he'd met someone who was willing to teach a moss-fingered boy to slip a knife between a dragon's scales.

But he had spent the winter wondering, as baffled men and defeated soldiers and once-fierce warriors drifted back to the crossroads fortress, with wilder stories on their tongues than the one Dagur is spinning now. They spoke of gods and demons and monsters as tall and mighty as mountains. They babbled of curses and creatures out of legend and impossible things. They stared into their cups and muttered of nightmares and Valkyries on dragonback. They swore bloody vengeance – on what, never clear – even as their knees trembled and their fists faltered. They looked away and begged not to speak of what they'd seen.

There must be thousands more out there, scattered to the edges of the earth. Without their warlord to bind them into his crusade, to terrify them into obedience – they're gone, and Grimmel for one does not miss any of them.

Or their master.

If there's one thing that all the stories have in common, it's that Drago Bludvist is dead.

Grimmel could barely believe it, when he'd heard. A single battered iron ship had dragged itself into the harbor where dozens like it had once passed through, cycling in close to shore and anchoring further out to sea in turn. Almost at once the whispers had sprung up, passing from man to man in mutters and gasps.

What no one seems to know is _how_.

What – or who – brought down the Beast from the Sea, as some had called him, is a question Grimmel would dearly like answered.

It's not that he was particularly fond of Drago. As far as he could tell, not even Drago had liked Drago very much. The man had seemed half a berserk dragon himself, like one of his whipped-up armored attack creatures, save only that Drago could speak, though seemingly never without a snarl.

Even among his allies, the consensus had always been that it was safer and better to keep Drago Bludvist supplied, his ships repaired, his worn-out dragons disposed of, his men fed or replaced when they finally came to their senses and were smart enough to run when they might have a chance of getting away, and his fleet aimed, above all, somewhere else. He'd been a weapon, but a _damned _effective one.

To know Drago Bludvist, all wild hair and brutish face and stolen cloak, would never return to stalk like creeping, savage darkness down the corridors of the crossroad fortress?

To know the Beast from the Sea would never again demand more, more, _more_ and growl at them when cooler-headed, wiser leaders didn't hop to do his bidding?

It had been a relief, honestly. And if only Grimmel had been sure that one of their own had gotten clever and stuck a knife in the man's back, he could have slept easily and dreamed pleasant dreams of long-ago hunts.

Instead he has a riddle without a reply, a game board with half its pieces missing, a trail with most of its pawprints wiped out, and a mystery he cannot leave alone.

The Beast from the Sea dead, and no one's hand to clasp for doing it.

He needs to know what happened, or he'll never get any rest. Not that there was much rest to be had back at the crossroad fortress where he'd wintered, listening to Svanhild scream at her supposed fellows until the old stones trembled in their ever-rotting mortar. He's grown tired of hearing common soldiers trade increasingly horrific tales of Drago's bloodlust and the dragon army he'd commanded, for all the good it had eventually done him. Grimmel has heard enough of the things the Beast had done to the settlements that had dared to cross him, those who'd simply denied him whatever he'd decided to take, and any man who'd happened to be standing near him when he lost his elusive temper.

Well, let them quarrel and tremble and make up tales of gods of endless ice and demons that came to reclaim one of their own. Either none of the supposed brave warriors had the wits to actually go and find out what had destroyed their alliance's deadliest weapon, or none of them had the nerve.

Grimmel has always known himself the proud possessor of both.

And then – the wounds beneath his cloak tug at him, and Grimmel smiles, slow and hungry, savoring the thought – then he'll put his Ghost through her paces, and see what sort of hunt she'll offer him. He'll let her slip her bonds, and bring her down again just when she thinks she's lost him…

If there's anything sweeter than that moment, when his prey knows it's caught, Grimmel's never found it.

He's had to leave his ship and walk away into this reeking fishermen's tavern just to keep from staring at his prize. To put distance between himself and his wild white beauty, just to prove to himself that he _could_. He'd been down there so long, counting her drugged-down breaths and feasting on the sight of her, that his knees had trembled beneath him when he'd stood, threatening to pitch him back to the deck.

No. He must have patience. He must be in control. Ghost will still be there for him when he returns.

"– and it shrieked," the redheaded barbarian is still telling his story, stalking up and down the table and jabbing a finger at his audience, "so loud all the ice trembled, but not me! I roared right back at it, even louder, and it fled from me! Turned its tail and ran, its spikes shaking so hard it rattled against the ice with fear!"

The man who'd sighed earlier now drops his head into one hand; the other is locked firmly around his ale mug as if he might squeeze the last few drops from it.

Dagur's voice drops. "But I wasn't going to let it get away, oh no… I had a dream, and the gods told me the Skrill was destined to be mine, that _I _would be the one to capture it, and even halfway to the frozen hells, I wasn't afraid!"

Grimmel's only been half-listening. Any story about dragon hunting is one he's at least remotely interested in, and the addition of a Skrill is a novel attempt, but so many would-be dragon hunters think that a good hunt just means running around in the forest waving a crossbow. Dagur happens to be wearing one slung over his shoulder, which Grimmel has professionally evaluated as not as good as his.

"Even though all my men were cowering on the floor, quaking like idiots –"

Under his breath, the tired man mutters into his ale mug. The faint echo is distinctive enough for Grimmel to know that it's empty, and he's just loud enough for Grimmel alone to hear, "It called down lightning on us, you daft boy, and after _you _said it needed the sky to do that."

Grimmel smiles. He's never hunted a Skrill, but he's heard from others like him, others who…_specialize_…that it's a fearsome foe.

He turns his attention back to his bowl of stew as Dagur goes off on a long rant on the uselessness of his own crew. Brat child, for all he calls himself a chief – Grimmel knows all too well that most people are fools who rarely think beyond the reach of their own hands, but he's smart enough not to tell them so to their face. Much better to let them think that they're useful and clever, and never let them see that Grimmel has been guiding them down the pathways _he _prefers they take all along.

The mutton's grown quite cold, but he eats it anyway, letting juice and char alike scrub the last taste of Deathgripper venom and old ale from his tongue. The numbness recedes from the tips of his fingers, and the deep bruise on his calf from where Ghost had failed to bite through his leather armor resumes its usual ache. She'd have put her fangs straight through the bone, no doubt, and the thought fills him with delight.

To have his life's work, the only hunt that's ever truly challenged him, restored to him after all this time! After resigning himself to the knowledge that he'd never again face a foe truly worthy of him, no matter how far he sailed…

The thought is warm enough to burn back even _four _drops.

"– but it flew down and down, and in the depths of the iceberg, the frozen hells opened up, and it begged for protection against me," Dagur goes on as Grimmel eats and wonders just how long a lead he can give Ghost, once he's solved this riddle. He'll have to let her wake, soon enough, or risk losing her to sleep she'll never rise from.

Grimmel will not let her go _that _easily.

"And down in the darkness where demons and ghosts dwell and hunger and hate us, something answered."

He lowers his voice dramatically, crouching down on his heels so that his audience has to lean in to listen.

"Black as nightmares! Deadly as fate! Hel's own dragon heard the Skrill's plea and knew only it stood the slightest chance against such a great warrior, and step by step it came. Up through the ice, from shadow to shadow, like the night that drives men mad – but not I!"

The barbarian slams a fist into his chest with a _thud_, and declares, "I stood between it and the sky, ready to face my Skrill in a fair fight. Treacherous thing," Dagur sneers. "It was afraid! It cowered. And into its place, with its fangs bared and screaming flame in its jaws, it came – the Night Fury!"

That, Grimmel hears.

He looks up reflexively, treading heavily on the flare of bloody hunger and breath-catching hope almost as soon as it lights within him.

The young barbarian's a liar, of course – there are no more Night Furies, not anywhere Grimmel might sail, or even fly, in all his remaining days. Perhaps if he'd picked a direction and never turned from it, as Furies are rumored to unless brought down, he might some day have reached another land where the black dragons still fly on their endless journeys.

He has long since resigned himself to the knowledge that he will never face another Fury – or he had, until Ghost had all but fallen into his hands, strange new-familiar thing that she is. She'd sliced them half to maidens' ribbons in her landing, to be sure, but landed she had, and brought him back to life as surely as if he'd taken flight when she'd fallen.

There is no god good enough to bring him both Ghost and true word of a living Night Fury, not both inside half a year. Grimmel would have sliced his own face to shreds and worn a mask to hide it, as the men far south are said to do to atone for failures, if he thought it would bring such a tide of good fortune back towards him.

He doesn't like to believe in fortune – he _works_ for a living – but he wouldn't push it away if it came to him. What he doesn't believe in is a rumor this good.

He wants to. He knows better.

Lying little barbarian, how _dare _he speak of Night Furies with Grimmel Dragonsbane within earshot – and Grimmel looks over at the tired, shadowed man, waiting for the rolled eyes or deep sigh or muffled groan, any of the signs of well-deserved disbelief that have spiced up Dagur's tale without the redhead knowing it, and amused his unseen listener greatly in the process.

The man is looking into his ale mug again, held tightly in both hands, and his face is pale, drawn tight, as if he is remembering something he would much prefer to forget.

As if Dagur's words might be – impossibly – true.

It seems Dagur's audience shares Grimmel's disbelief, though – if they were jeering earlier, they've found their voices again now. "Shut _up!_" one of the fishermen yells. "No such thing!"

"Yeah, right!" another young barbarian shouts. "As if!"

"This all ends with your precious Skrill gettin' away, don't it?" someone else joins in, over the disapproving hisses and a rattle of mugs knocked against the table to drown out any more of Dagur's story. "No shame in that, boy – fine tale as it was, 'til you threw _that _in there!"

"How drunk _are _you?" yet another voice calls out. "Where you gettin' the good ale from, then?"

"Yeah, I want some of that!" agrees someone in a metal cap that's somewhat too large on him, not much helped by the deep dent in one side.

Shouts of "Beer!" quickly replace "Liar!", and the room sways over to the bar with their mugs raised high like the tide's changed. They leave Dagur high and dry and fuming hot enough to boil seawater into steam, abandoned atop the table and the wreckage of his story.

Fists clenched, the redheaded young barbarian mutters curses at their retreating backs and kicks every abandoned trencher from the table, scattering scraps of meat and fish and turnip porridge across the long benches and the rushes below. He stomps a boot down as if he means to put it straight through the wood of the table, and seems offended when it doesn't break. He clenches his jaw until Grimmel can almost hear his teeth grinding, even over the clamor for more and stronger ale, and lifts one fist as if he might consider drawing the crossbow from his back and demanding they listen to him.

He doesn't. Instead, he leaps down from the table and stalks out of the tavern, head down not in shame but in the manner of a bull that doesn't much care whether there's a door in his path or not.

The skeptical, exhausted-looking warrior lurches to his feet, grabs his horned helmet from the table, gets it onto his head on the second attempt, and follows his chief somewhat unsteadily.

Much more surefootedly, so does Grimmel.

* * *

The trading port – barely more than alleyways between stone strongholds, guarded by would-be warriors paid to stand and snarl – is very far from the wild places and deep valleys and barren stones where Grimmel prefers to hunt. Give him the long channel of a fjord without so much of the scent of a cookfire, no humans for days of travel save himself and the few crew he can tolerate to tend his ship while he works, and he's happy enough. Give him the track of a dragon to set his fingers to, the scrapes of shedding scales against the rough bark of a shaken fir, the out-of-place splotch of ashes from fire hurriedly snuffed beneath a pounce to claim its prey – ah, Grimmel could spend _months _stalking his prey thus.

Following the young redhead as he stalks back towards the waterfront, his plodding man in his wake, is no challenge whatsoever. With his cloak wrapped around his dark leathers, tight against the grumbling summer sky as the last light fades, there's nothing to set Grimmel apart from anyone else hustling from ship to tavern to whatever shelter they prefer from there.

Before long, the two Vikings board a somewhat battered longship, wide-beamed and sturdy but riding higher in the water than suits it. Little aboard, then, and its crew hungry. The ship seems to have fallen on hard times along with its crew. The wood of its hull is weathered and faded, and barnacles cling below the waterline, visible only when a sailor lifts a lamp to guide his chief back to the deck. A crack shivering through the prow has been patched roughly, but with enthusiasm. Far more nails have been pounded through the wood than it truly needs, enough that for a moment Grimmel wonders if some half-mad ship's smith has decided to keep all his spare nails on the outside of the ship rather than in its belly.

Even half-furled, and badly done at that, Grimmel can recognize the stylized shape of a Skrill painted across the sail's canvas. Equally ragged stitches trace their way along the trailing edge of it, but the Skrill is as bright as if it's been recently painted.

That shows determination, to Grimmel, and no little pride. Perhaps that much of Dagur's story, at least, had been true. Almost against his will, Grimmel begins to wonder in earnest about the remainder…

Raised voices carry over from the ship's deck, and Grimmel paces closer to listen, quieting his breathing and commanding his too-eager heart to be patient.

"– _laughed _at me!" Dagur is snarling. "Again! We should have stayed in the Archipelago – at least people there know how to fight! How far do I have to go to find actual warriors?"

"Perhaps if you chose a different tale to draw them –" a new voice offers hesitantly.

Dagur cuts him off like he's swinging an axe. A faint _hissss-thunk! _suggests he may be. "No way! _Real _fighters will recognize what a chance I'm offering them! Only the best for a battle like they've never seen before, one they're going to be singing about forever, and I'll dragnet every tavern and hall in the North if I have to!"

Someone sighs as the lantern-holder turns away from the water, and Grimmel pads closer to the ship where it rocks against its moorings. "Maybe, sir," says an older voice, "we should focus on finding that girl first."

Grimmel is mildly impressed with Dagur's growl, even as he tugs on one of the ropes and judges the leap. "That _girl?_ That little common _thief?_ Oh, I'll find her all right. I'll show up on her doorstep with a _Night Fury _in her face, and then we'll see who's the better chieftain!"

The Berserker grumbles to himself, and Grimmel leaps lightly from dock to rope to a shadowed corner of the deck. Years of flight have given him steady feet and excellent balance, and the few steps are easy.

"…teach Astrid to laugh at me," Dagur is muttering, too caught up in his own grievances to notice the intruder on his ship. "Her and her stupid friends and their stupid pet dragons, slinkin' around behind my back while I'm off on a perfectly good quest – they've got their heads together and no mistake, that stuck-up little blond minx and her black-haired wench, think they're so clever…"

The redhead kicks at the deck and the axe indeed embedded in it. Grimmel is mildly disappointed when the toe of his boot _clang_s off the flat of the blade rather than the sharp edge.

"Gonna get my Berserkers back, and Berk too, and then she'll _have _to trade me her spies if she wants her precious island back. How by all mad gods did she get that dragon-rider and his Fury to work for _her?_"

"So it's real," says Grimmel, from the darkness, and smiles like the scythe moon at the weapons thrust into his face almost before he finishes speaking.

"Better," he says idly, nodding as if he might be awarding the Berserker crew points. "Very quick responses, once you knew I was there, of course." He taps a finger against a sword blade hovering around his chin and _tch_es at the faint line of blood that springs up across the pad. "Quite sharp. Clean iron. Well done, that man. Mind the hilt, the leather's fraying. Sea air will do that."

Viking faces blink at him, about half from beneath heavy helmets, the remainder fumbling for lanterns as Dagur wrenches the axe from the deck and snaps, "What, are you blind? Spread out!" at them. They do, possibly before their chief throws something at them.

"Get off my ship, old man!" Dagur snarls instead, elbowing his men aside, probably hoping to stare Grimmel down. The redhead's a full head shorter, it turns out, so the attempt doesn't quite work. Dagur's built heavier, though. And has an axe.

Grimmel truly doesn't care. He has no intention of wrestling the young chief. He prefers a more…_entertaining_ approach.

After all, if the world were truly run by muscles, Drago would still be alive, and Grimmel might just have to drink off the rest of his vial in despair without even poor ale to sweeten his own death.

"Now, that you do not want," Grimmel declares, raising his cut finger as if lecturing a moody child. Well. He is.

"Yeah?" the young Berserker chief challenges, setting his feet and squaring his shoulders, knuckles popping as he grips the axe tighter. "Gimme one reason I don't pick you up by your neck and toss you in the harbor right godsdamned now. Reason one for is, it'll be funny. Your go."

Grimmel smiles, meeting Dagur's gaze and holding it without blinking, counting somewhere in the back of his mind. _Three…four…five…six…_ and he sees uncertainty spark to life in the other man's eyes, behind the anger and the smoldering humiliation left over from Dagur's failed tavern tale.

That's it. He's got them. The battle-scarred and storm-weathered warriors all around him now, the hustling sailors scouring the ship for allies he hasn't brought with him – they don't matter.

He's got their leader, so he wins.

Now, what to do with him…

"Because I believe you," says Grimmel, and smiles even wider as desperate hope blazes bright enough in Dagur's eyes. As he'd suspected. No one else has believed the redhead's story, not beyond his own men who may have stories of their own to tell, and he doesn't have enough to wage whatever battle he's recruiting for.

Who else would believe him?

But even as Dagur blinks, and his scowl becomes a grin, and he steps back and punches a fist in the air with a cry of "Yes! Finally! You get to stay _dry_, good ol' whatsyourface!" – the whispers start, as they always do.

Somewhere in the shadows, behind the far-from-home warriors now more curious than defensive, someone whispers _draugr_.

Already, someone has looked at him and named him a corpse that walks, and Grimmel the Grisly feels the aftertaste of old poison in his throat.

He is many, many things. He is a hunter and slayer of the wiliest dragon to ever spread its wings above land or water. He has built things no one else has even imagined in their maddest dreams. He is the master of a dragon breed most men dare not even look upon, and spit upon the beasts' shadows as they lumber past. He is a strategist to make any experienced _tafl_ or Maces and Talons player smash his board and scatter the pieces to the waves. He has commanded armies not his own with nothing to enforce his orders, save his wits and the respect he has earned for them.

Well. And his dragons.

He may wear their features still, but he left the true walking corpses behind long ago.

"So tell me about this Night Fury you faced," he orders, just flattering enough that Dagur might not notice, if the boy's the headstrong fool Grimmel thinks he is. "I want to hear everything. …And what exactly did you mean, _dragon-rider_?"

* * *

_To be continued._


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Okay. Welcome back to this series, everyone! If you were waiting for this story, I love you. Know that. Let's roll.

* * *

_**Freefall**_**, Part Two**

Toothless spreads his wings into the wind, daring it to come and leap at him properly. Around him, the night sky spins, stars and drifting clouds and shimmering waves, and he turns one wing just _so _to turn his steady glide into a wide-arching veer.

The wind answers him, its shoulders slamming into his side like a pouncing nest-mate, and Toothless rolls with it in play.

The cold high air, sharp with the scent of ice, does not pierce his scales; they are not hatchling-soft to be swept beneath a sheltering wing. Its touch is as familiar as his own heartbeat and the welcome weight between his shoulders, and he greets it like a flock-mate friend with a dragon's laugh, all flashing tongue and a flip of his nose that says _see-you!_

The wind is a thing not seen, but Toothless belongs in the sky, and its games are his to play.

Flight is what he is for, he knows deep within. To fly is a joy always. To fly alone-together in the darkness, theirs the only voices – that is a keen delight that burns through him like his own heart-fire and the warmth of his beloved-one's paws against his chest.

Lately they have flown far and led others, searching for a safe place with prey to hunt and ledges to climb across. It was an island they remembered from their travels, where dragons might go. And it was where Toothless knew it was, after all! He had sneered at Pester and dug his claws into the earth, scattering it so it _almost _sprayed across the bigger dragon as she lashed her tail and grumbled. Hiccup had gestured at him _enough_ even as his beloved-self snorted _amusement_, whistling _serve-you-right! _at Pester when she glared.

There, they paced very carefully as their flock-mates mantled their wings and pawed at the new ground, guarding with their heads lifted _proud _and _brave_ and only rolling their eyes a little.

They put their noses into prey-burrows, snorting at the reek of scent-markers boasting very foolishly. They poked sticks into melting snowbanks to listen for the harsh metal bite of a trap that has missed its pounce, and purred _satisfaction _when they found none.

One day, when they feel like it, they will go back and see again that their friends have made good new nests there. Perhaps one or another will drift back to the nest that is home always, unwilling to live beyond the sheltering reassurance of their king's shadow. Perhaps that one will tell Toothless and his Hiccup-self stories of the new place, just as they tell stories in gesture and pretending whenever they return from far away.

But that is _one day_, and only a _maybe-so_, and the endless sea is glowing as it rolls.

Now there is no busy, raucous tangle of shrieks and cries and whistles from far below or all around. No one yowls _wait wait wait_ as they scramble for balance, wings paddling in Toothless' wake when they should just _fly_, if they did not want to be left very far behind!

No one chirrups _come play!_, or whimpers _lost me lost why where lonely where pity-me_ when no one answers her calls, because all around her are sleeping, glutted and lazy with blood still staining their muzzles and fur caught between their claws. No one shrieks _outrage _at them as they dart away yelping laughter to each other at some good trick they have played.

The ocean stretches out below them, and the sky above, and that is their entire world.

There is only the night and the shimmering sea, the moon and the black dragon, and Hiccup on his shoulders humming in formless joy.

Toothless does not even have to roll one eye back to see his Hiccup-_self_. He knows from the touch of Hiccup's paws against his shoulders, braced with a lifetime's practice, and the way the wind snaps around them, that his Hiccup-half has raised his face to the sky as if the sun were high and blazing down warm to bask in, his eyes shut tight _hello _to the moon.

They know these things about each other.

The sea breeze has caught his tail just right, but Toothless waves the tip of it _happy_, rumbling with a deep, true purr.

At once, the wind's careful grip on them is broken, and Toothless' wing folds beneath him. He lurches sharply to the side, like a stumble, but he is not afraid. He does not need to flail and claw and kick at the air like a hatchling dropped into the king's lake for just one nap's worth of peace.

They are _good _at falling.

The clouds wash over him, and the stars blink and recoil, and the wind whistles _indignation _through his ear-flaps that he will not play its game.

But as the black dragon closes his eyes and plummets, there is no sound that matters more than Hiccup's yowling shriek that is _laughter good good good like very-much-so falling laughter falling yes yes more!_

He feels Hiccup throw all his paws loose and drop into the fall, and for a moment they do not touch, but Toothless knows he is there, that he has not lost his heart-self – never again! The straps of their flying-with bite into his chest and keel, and Toothless ducks his head reflexively, wanting to lick the straps as he has done so many times, grooming it _mine-ours_.

It is a new thing now, and different-feeling a bit, but he can taste Hiccup's paws on every strap and tie of it, and it is a good thing always. It must be. It binds them together, lets them fly crazy-wild and upside-down just so under the endless sky, until they cannot breathe with the delight of it and their throats are raw from screaming challenges to the silent-staring moon.

They spin and they fall and they spin and Toothless' heart races within his chest as the sky opens up as if to catch them, and he shrieks _laughter _of his own into the fast-fluttering wind.

Instinct and the memory of many splashes shrieks at him, and Toothless wrenches one wing open. He feels all the world flip around him like the snap of a breaking bone he has bitten through _very _sharply, and then the other wing _crack_s out to catch them. Hiccup lands on his shoulders again, all his small weight on all his paws like a pounce, and never loses his balance for a moment.

And they soar together, tearing across the sea as fast as diving, bright sea-spray leaping into the wind to meet them like the stars have fallen beside them.

_Up!_ Hiccup signals, a tug on the flying-with and a nudge to his ribs, and Toothless follows him without question – a single blink, and the very edge of the rearing wave clips only Toothless' paws held tight against his chest, splashing them both a little. Before it can fall away again, the black dragon turns a paw and rips one claw across its belly, leaving a line of blazing light.

Toothless gurgles _amusement_, yips _gotcha!_ at the ocean, shrugs _invitation_, and purrs at Hiccup's chirp-whistle of _scolding only-playing yes joke good!_ It is a very good joke, to scratch the sea, and the littler dragon scrapes his own soft-claws against Toothless' scales. Some scratches are only in play.

But the wounded wave is far behind them now, the trails of stars shining around the brighter gash that bleeds away into the darker depths, and the black dragon races away from it so fast he cannot even see his shadow beneath them.

Hiccup crouches low between his shoulders, yelping _fast yes good we go us fly yes more go fly Toothless-beloved _– the sounds rattle _tt-th-ss_, pure undertones of _love _unquestioned as clear as a steady stone beneath his paws – as the wind tears the sounds from him.

Hiccup is no stranger to flight, any more than Toothless. The soaring weightlessness of it has been part of him since he was six months old, burned into his soul. They have been flying together from the first moment the black dragon was strong enough to bear a rider, and the two little ones had worn their bruises and crashes like hard-won battle-scars.

Toothless does not remember the first time he spread his wings and knew what they were for; he was a hatchling among dragons, he _always _knew.

He does not remember his first hovering flight, but he faintly remembers being small, and wanting more than anything to bring Hiccup up into the air too so they could fly together.

To have his other half and second self on his back is the most complete _rightness _Toothless has ever known or dreamed of. He dodges a light-speckled wave leaping at him to defend its hiding-away flock-mates, and he beats his wings powerfully to launch them into the sharp ascent that even long dragon necks snap back to see.

And beneath the sheer exhilaration of speed and the dark and the wide-eyed moon, the thrill of a hunt and of running just to run, flying just to fly, the burn of strength used well burning all through his body from nose to tail-tip, out to the trailing edges of his wings and down to the deepest white-hot heart of the fire in his belly –

Still he purrs at the touch of Hiccup's paws, splayed out across his shoulders, and the warmth of his beloved-one's smaller body against his spine.

A rush of air that leaves even Hiccup's trill of _up up up up up! _far behind them, a snap of broad wings, a cold sharp shock of a cloud splashing out around them – and high above the ocean, their world stops still.

For a moment between heartbeats, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are afloat in a world of stars.

Two sets of breath release at once in exhilarated, delighted panting, and the silence is broken as they chirp and croon and yip _flying good flying us yes proud-pleased-smug fun like good-game us who-challenges? who-challenges? dare-you!_ to the empty sky.

Below them, the cloud swirls, nudging its torn shreds back into itself again, but the light from the ocean shows through its wounds. Hiccup pounds his paws against the back of Toothless' skull in a rapid heartbeat of _thudthudthudthud _that is _triumph_.

There is no one to fly with them, to try to match their dives and swerves and leaps and to fail in a hilarious splash. Toothless arcs his neck very smug regardless, and shows his throat to any stars that might dare to jump at it and be bitten for trying. The black dragon snorts _there see told-you best me-us very-proud sure confident sure_ because he can.

Hiccup _yowp_s _teasing_ at him, and catches and tugs on an ear-flap when Toothless twitches it back at him.

Toothless does not mind that.

He spreads his wings into the wind again – it forgives him for leaving with only a ripple of dissatisfaction – and together they soar.

Someone who had seen Toothless as a hatchling, nameless and lonely in ways he did not understand, all eyes and wings and tail, might have recognized the dragon grown. There is no other dragon with scales like his, Toothless knows – _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, Hiccup and Toothless both, have flown very far and met many dragons. That alone would mark him.

But there is very little of the once-awkward hatchling to him otherwise. Elegant in flight and graceful on the ground, a prowling predator with a snap-quick spring, his instincts for balance and speed have no rival. Scars trace their way across his winternight-black scales, darker channels dug into the glossy black of flank and wing. But they are marks from battles won and wounds survived and traps escaped from, and so Toothless can touch his nose to each with pride.

Bright green eyes have seen more of the world than many dragons much older than he, and there is a sharply intelligent light in them that betrays his talent – shared with his Hiccup-self – for thinking his way out of the trouble their recklessness so often gets them into.

Smaller than many dragons, but faster in flight than all of them; Toothless knows himself bright and bold and beautiful, and a lovely flier at that. Hiccup has told him so too many times to remember, and his Hiccup-self would tease and mock and play with him, but never lie.

And it does not hurt his pride at all to know that humans, _pfikingr_, trap-setters and dragon-killers and almost always the enemy, cower _fear _at him even before he has blasted fire at them.

There are some, strange and confusing and far from here, who are not their enemy. But even those _pfikingr_ stand like deer, poised to leap before he can pounce.

There was one without fear, only madness and hate and need-to-hurt, but Toothless does not like to think of that one. The dead are gone. They cannot hurt him still.

There was _mother-of-ours_, once, but Toothless does not truly remember her, only her scent sometimes. He remembers her warmth, that she was soft and her touch was gentle, and that he knew himself safe with her.

He does not know if he remembers her voice. Once, long ago when he was smaller, he had perched beneath a cliff-face with Hiccup sleeping at his side, listening to hawks calling to their nestlings, and found himself strangely comforted. Their cries had not been the high hunting shriek Toothless knew from quarrels over prey, but softer sounds, with the fierceness hidden beneath.

Hiccup, of course, is a dragon, the _(click)-phuh _half to make _tt-th-ss _whole. When he thinks of humans, Toothless has never thought of Hiccup.

This is where they belong: alone-together with the sky and all the night to play in, and they always have, and they always will.

The moonlight washes over them, black dragon and dragon-feral, wild and free and fearless. With still-glowing droplets of sea-spray clinging to their scales like stars, they look more than ever like a slice of living night.

Hiccup taps at one curiously, murmuring _wonder _mantled with _regret _when it fades and wisps away.

The little dragon snorts _fine!_ at it as if it were a hatchling who had stalked away from him, refusing to play, and brushes all the droplets he can reach from Toothless' scales, banishing any strays from his fur with a dizzying shake.

_Again! _he shrieks happily, leaning into the black dragon's shoulders, and Toothless gurgles _laughter _and dives.

* * *

When the stone rattles beneath him, Hiccup does not wake – not really. It is no more than the nest sighing to itself, and why should it not sigh? The dragons that pace through its caverns, splash through its cave-lakes, cling to its stone teeth, chase each other over its peaks – they sigh in their sleep. They snore, and kick, and sneeze flickers of fire until their flock-mates shove them to the edge of their warm pile where they cannot burn anyone's nose but their own.

The little dragon opens one eye to see only the familiar darkness of Toothless' side, a wing wrapped over him, and listens sleepily. But no alarm-calls are raised and no howls of pain or fear echo through the cavern beyond their sleeping-nest. Toothless murmurs in his sleep, his heartbeat against Hiccup's back still heavy and steady with good dreams.

He catches the faint crack of stone upon ice against stone, but no more than might fall any day. It is not a very good chase to snatch back a toy unless fleeing thief, or vengeful pursuer, or both, and all their friends and an excited pack of dragons who have joined the chase to see what the prize might be, have smashed through some stone outcropping.

All the icicles from the long winter have been gone since before he and Toothless left to lead others to the new island, charged through and swatted at and carried off as toys, so he has no fear of falling ice.

Even if their king has made new icicles for dragons to play with, Hiccup knows there is stone wrapped over their sleeping-nest like a sheltering wing, making the tucked-away cave that fits _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _as if they had dug it out themselves.

He taps his soft-claws against the ashy stone to tell it he has heard its sigh, tries to stretch wings that are not there and never have been but will be someday, feels them fold regardless, and yawns himself back to sleep.

The entire nest is Hiccup's home, and every dragon within his family, but this hollow in the rock is where he and Toothless always return. The small space is just big enough for them to curl up together, with a little more beyond. It is slightly separated from the wide-open cavern by stone fangs that dripped so far from the outcropping above, they reached the ground and fixed there like roots. The larger cave beyond rolls like waves, smooth-flowing stone trodden smoother by the touch of countless dragon paws, and when the stone rolls into their den, it drops away to make a shallow pit.

Ashes line it, trodden down hard, mostly scorched stone but always with a whiff of scent from one of Hiccup's try-and-see games to learn what some green thing or another will smell like when burnt and rolled upon. Stone edges, jutting out from the sides, guard the tools and the toys that Hiccup has found or made and cached away like a squirrel.

His flock-mates know very well that squirrels can not only be eaten but stolen from, and that the littlest dragon in the nest is always playing with something new and different. So he is always chasing down one flock-mate or another who has stolen a holding-thing of red dirt or a bundle of hoarded leather scraps, scolding and threatening with fangs too small to bite sharply, bared anyway.

But even with the tremor to wake them all and set paws and spine buzzing, none of their flock-mates poke their noses into their den. The dragon-feral and his dragon-self are left to sleep in their usual curled-up puddle of shadowy scales and shared dreams until they choose to stir.

* * *

_That? that?_ Toothless croons _curiosity_, nudging his nose into Hiccup's shoulder and peering over it at the line the littler dragon is tracing on the stone. He hums _morning me tired-still not-urgent me here happy you Hiccup-beloved what? interest-maybe tired-still _and a long _stre-e-e-e-e-tch _sound, rolling a shrug all the way down his spine to his tailfins.

_Uncertainty_, Hiccup hums back to him, but the undertones in his voice are _patient _and _watching _and _idle_ rather than _worry restless upset _and the bristling hackle of a dragon who has seen something they do not like. He taps the burnt stick against the stone and the floor and Toothless' nose and the back of his other forepaw, marking black scuffs like scales across it. Each tap is accompanied by a soft _whuff_ that ticks back and forth, but Hiccup cannot count, and the sound is only _this this this this this_.

He considers the line as if it were a prey-beast's track, and puts his nose to it even though he knows when it passed by; the scent is fresh, he put it there. He woke with a line in his paws, and now there is a line, and he is waiting for it to tell him what it is.

The puzzle grips him even as Toothless yawns until his jaw cracks, and the black dragon licks a spot of ash from his shoulder and then another from Hiccup's matted auburn fur. He barely notices his overlong mane falling into his eyes anymore, nor do the tangles rooted deep into it bother him. What else would dragon tongues catch and tug on when he joins them in their grooming, scratching itches from the points they cannot reach themselves? No dragon can groom the back of their own head, except for two-heads cousin/s, and clever paws can be shared as easily as friendly tongues.

His paws are the _only _good thing of him being born human once. He still does not like to think of it, and he does not need to. Raised by dragons, among dragons, as a dragon, knowing no other life and certainly wanting nothing else, Hiccup has long since left behind all but the last traces of the human baby he once was. That baby was gone the moment Cloudjumper-_mother's-mate_ caught up mother and child in his claws and brought both to the nest Hiccup still calls home.

Twenty-two years later, what remains is the utterly wild creature he has become: a dragon that stands upright sometimes, with clever paws and ragged auburn fur and patchworked scales he wears as a second skin. For claws, he has his sharp-clawed gauntlets tucked into his belt. For wings, he has gliding wings furled away ready against his spine and the small fins like Toothless' spines there. For his heart, he has Toothless-_beloved-self_, and his sure faith in his own fires inside.

He has no desire to be anything else, anywhere else, any_one _else but half of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, half of a single soul.

It is warm in their den, and they are happy to be home for now, and Toothless is content enough to wrap a forepaw around his Hiccup-self as the littler dragon leans back into his chest. Hiccup huffs a warning breath, a promise of fire, and fixes his eyes on the defiant line that will not share its secrets. It has its paws set like a rock-eater cousin, its shoulders braced, its eyes turned away, but he will stare it down.

Without thought, Hiccup vocalizes at it, chirping and muttering _you you you what you curious me search this? this? gonna-find here me looking impatient-maybe you yes_ and whistling the sharp rebuke of_ you-had-better!_

He pokes the burnt stick towards it as if flipping over a rock to see what might squirm away, and pauses before the tip can touch the stone, a thought catching him.

_Realization!_ he cries, his body tensing _delight_, and Toothless looks up to see what the line will become. He understands shapes, though he struggles to make them himself. It does not matter; Hiccup makes enough shapes for both of them. Once he tried to make a shape for every dragon in the nest, but there were too many dragons to remember and You Splash had caught him on the edge of one of the water meadows and pushed him in.

Toothless blinks at the shape. It is still the same.

_This? _Toothless signals, cocking his head _not-sure _at Hiccup, who grins a dragon's tongue-flashing grin at him. A pounce sparkles in his green eyes.

_This! _Hiccup agrees, and waves at the line. He drops the stick to make it rattle and bounce, and folds his forepaws up to his chest, and snorts an insistent, stubborn _is so!_

The line is a line.

Toothless stares at the sharp dark line among the drawings that cover the walls of their den. His eyes flick over complex sketches of flock-mates and of themselves. He looks at the drawn-out scribbles of nightmares and what-ifs and feelings. He considers the half-realized making-shapes of things that might have been.

He looks back at Hiccup being very smug indeed, and deliberately blows _scorn_ at him.

The grand and ridiculous fight that could have come of this ends before it truly begins, with Toothless crouched into a pounce with one paw in the air, batting at Hiccup as his dearheart fends him off with the burnt stick, charcoal crumbling grey against black scales. Tumbling over each other and their own paws, they have scampered out of their den and into the rolling waves of the larger cavern, dodging between drowsing or grooming or chattering flock-mates, whistling greetings to Big Step Careful as he signals a surprised _you you here!_ to them, in between exaggerated snarls and fake roars to each other.

But then a shuddering, wailing cry echoes down into the cavern, and the dragon-pair stop short, heads coming up _attention_. Almost at once, their bodies sag, their eyes dim, _play-fight _becoming a grieving crouch as one of their own mourns.

Someone sings out in a high, bitter keen, a wordless lament of loss and regret and _missing_, calling out to someone she knows will never reply. She searches even as she howls the bitter knowledge that she will never find them again. She howls _anger _with _pain _shivering through its core, a cry of _lost!_ too deep to mean anything but _dead._ The sound rings from the stone and sends shudders through every dragon listening, and whimpers join the grieving dragon-cousin's cry.

They do not know which of their own is gone, or how, and perhaps they will never know. There are many dragons in the nest, and only their Alpha knows them all. But they are flock-mates, kin, every one of them family, and the grief of one touches all. They keen back to her to drown out her cries of _lonely_, to fill the emptiness she brings them with their own sounds, until the stone seems to hum with it.

Hiccup and Toothless whimper _grief _with them, pressing their shoulders together on instinct, defensively. They have mourned many of their flock-mates, all their lives. Death is as close to them as the ocean, and as constant. Winter takes dragons, when there is no food and those who sleep do not wake again, or when one of their cousins can no longer bear to wait out the deep cold and bursts from shelter like lightning, striking out at all things in frustration, racing blindly for a sky they cannot survive alone.

Even a prey-beast can kill a dragon, if the prey is lucky and the dragon is careless or tired or wounded. _Pfikingr _kill dragons in traps and with sharp things, when they come hunting and when dragons go raiding their ships and nests. Eggs do not hatch, and hatchlings stay too small to live, and the world beyond the nest is dangerous for dragons too young to fight and too new to know any better.

Even those who have turned away all their foes and seen too many winters to remember lose the long chase to death in the end. They stop, drifting slowly or falling quickly, or they spread their wings for the last time to make their death hunt them down, and those the flock does not see again.

This flock has grieved too many deaths since the summer before, when battle that sought to slay even the _king _and destroy their world came here. The echoing, keening song of pain and loss they sing is far too familiar.

And yet, they sing.

One of theirs is dead, and so, knowing nothing more, they mourn.

Echoes are winding all throughout the deep caves and scattered passages, sending the message along, by the time Hiccup and Toothless are ready to move again. Toothless grunts _resignation _and touches his nose to Hiccup's heartbeat for reassurance, and Hiccup lifts his head from Toothless' shoulder. Leaping somewhat halfheartedly to Toothless' back, he sighs, and remembers all the nest sighing too, if it was not a dream.

* * *

A scramble, a slide, a leap, and a very careful picking through of new-scattered stones with sharp edges, and they emerge into the open living heart of the nest and the day. Sunlight cuts through Hiccup like claws, slicing through the tightness in his chest, and his sigh now is one of relief. He must only shutter his eyes against it for a moment, and then all the bright colors of the hidden nest, which he will never tire of, are his to watch.

Tall peaks of stone, riddled with uncountable caves and tangled-together tunnels, covered with ledges and outcroppings for dragons to perch and sun themselves on, wrap themselves around the softer places within the nest. Plants greener and lusher than anything else in the cold northern ocean have found root in the cracks between rocks, gathering in hollows and corners and small dips, and so the nest so fierce and ice-coated outside is a riot of rich color and living things within. Ice spills over the peaks from above, but the plants in its way try until winter to reach past it for the sun.

On the far side of the lake are broad meadows filled with small pools and thick grass, colored with the bright flashes of dragon-scales. The meadows are a good place to sit in the sun, or to run, run, _run_ knowing no hunter will leap from ambush. Although a flock-mate might pounce, especially if stumbled over when they were trying to sleep or searching for something they have lost.

Dragons are always hiding good toys in the flowing grass, thinking themselves _very _clever for not hiding them in the dark of the caves, and then not being able to find whatever it was again.

Warmth from deep below keeps the water in underground lakes from freezing, and so on some mornings – this one is no different – great billows of mist puff out from the mouths of tunnels like steam-spitting ocean cousins. The nest has its own clouds, but they never last for long.

Not with a dragon flock flying through them, catching the mist on their wings and dragging it with them a little way. She Sun and Spoiled Baby burst through one plume, their jaws snapping at Head Down's tail as she flees into the sky and escapes towards a high tunnel, all of them scattering scraps of mist above the deep ocean lake in the heart of the nest.

Dragons do not swim in grief; they are too busy living.

Beneath the ledge Toothless has carried him to, dragons of every shape and size and color – but none like them, there are no other dragons like them – soar through the air, crying out to each other. Hiccup recognizes arguments, greetings, invitations, questions, challenges, boasts, rejections, and a sharp clear whistle of joy as Orange Spots careens from the edge of a spire and plunges into the deep lake at the heart of the nest with a great splash.

Digs Up Flowers veers past overhead and whistles to them, and Toothless spreads his wings in reply as she lands on the nearly sheer rock face. She clings there only a moment before taking off in a great leap elsewhere.

Walks Through Snow grunts a warning as Toothless steps lightly past him, and Hiccup snorts _would-not!_ They see him there. They are not quite as silly as the chattering flock of hatchlings pouncing on each other's tails and casting sly glances towards the ice peaks that surround the lake meadows and keep small dragons too young to fly away in the nest.

The dragon perched on the highest of the peaks shares the hatchlings' shape and almost their colors, but she is much, much bigger. She cannot be the mother of all of them – there are very many hatchlings – but they will not slip past her.

Hiccup ducks his head to hide his grin beneath his fur. Hatchlings can slip past guarding mothers if they are _very _fast and clever, if they have started an enormous fight among their friends somewhere obvious before slipping away into the shadows. That adventure had been _entirely _worth the scolding he and Toothless had gotten when they returned!

But as he watches the attentive mother, movement further away catches his eye, and he sits up to see it better. A trailing paw drawn back across Toothless' shoulders brings the black dragon to a stop as well, and Toothless flicks an ear-flap back _what?_

_Look_, Hiccup signals, thrumming _curiosity _and _concern _in balanced harmony. Not far beyond the ice, many dragons are hovering, fluttering erratically, disappearing in sudden dives and reappearing in quick ascents. Even at a distance, their movements say _distress_ bright and clear.

Something is happening there, on the edges of their nest, and Hiccup does not like the look of it at all. He bristles instinctively, paws curling to grasp and twitching towards his sharp-clawed gauntlets. He turns his head to watch sidelong with the habits of many hunts, avoiding the stare that frightens prey and provokes an enemy, at least until he has decided whether to leap or back away.

Toothless considers them just the same, ear-flaps twitching back in a soft _don't-like_. His tail lashes, and a growl hums in his chest but does not escape his fangs, just the edges of them showing. A single glance over his shoulder – Hiccup signals _let's go! _without hesitation – and he spreads his wings and leaps. Not away from the strange thing their flock-mates are doing, but towards it.

As he does so, a presence as powerful as the sun brushes across them.

Toothless drops back to the ground in an absolute, instinctive crouch that pins Hiccup flat to his shoulders as well.

Across the ocean lake, the ice-blue eyes of the king of all the nest are fixed on them.

They can feel him looking at them, as surely as if they stood in a shaft of sunlight caught in the depths of a black cave, and just so, they can see nothing beyond their Alpha's gaze.

They can only bear it, and trust no crushing blow will descend upon them. They know with perfect faith that their Alpha is a good king, and that he loves them even when they trespass.

_Apology_, Hiccup cringes, knowing Toothless is cowering too. This is not a new small flock in a new place with only _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _to guide them. It is not their place to run towards something that might be trouble, not here, and Hiccup yields – not in fear, but in respect.

He knows where he stands in his own home-nest.

Most dragons do not fly far from their territory. They have places to hunt that they like, or an island that their flock stays on and defends, and rarely fly beyond it. They may leave to search further away for food, if there is not enough prey for them all. They may chase an intruder far away until he has learned that they are fierce. They may flee before packs of humans who come there to stay and get very angry that dragons were there first.

Hiccup and Toothless wander for the joy of it, to fly until they find a new horizon, and so they have rarely been able to turn at once to their Alpha and beg for his help. When they are far from home, they must face trouble themselves.

And so the dragon-pair, unusually, do not startle and flee from danger, perhaps not as much as they should. They have learned that they must fly towards it, and face it, or it will catch them when they are not ready.

But this is not far away; they are within their Alpha's domain.

And yet –

_**Concern**_ washes over _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, and is replaced almost immediately by _**Amusement**_.

Their sense of their Alpha lifts as quickly as it descended. It leaves two baffled little dragons to leap into flight again, clicking _confusion _all the way over the ice peaks with barely a whistle of acknowledgement to Tell Me Again as she guards.

* * *

The closer the dragon-pair fly, the more clearly they can hear the teeming spiral of dragons. They wail to each other and dive in jerky, erratic lunges before veering away before their paws can touch the ground. Their movements say _panic_, the sudden wrenching moment when the fear of one dragon sinks its claws into another like a predator, leaping from spine to spine.

Hiccup and Toothless are no closer to understanding as Toothless drops into a sudden gust of ice-cold and backwings, hovering over the frenzy below.

All the edges of the cliff are sharp and new, ice glinting blue-green where it has been sheared from itself. The long pale stripe of a fresh avalanche lies spread across the shoreline like a scribble of white chalk running into the sea.

As they slept, a tremor broke away a spur from the ice that guards the nest, sending it crashing down. Its fall set off a cascade of stone and ice and frozen sand, mud and gravel and snow that tore a great gash through the side of the island. Everything in its path was dragged along in its wake, and as it passed, it exposed a wide swath of clean, treacherous, snowy sand.

Or it had been clean, before a frantic flurry of dragons descended on it, pushing each other aside and wailing. They are treading all over the quickly-muddying sand and each other's paws, scrabbling desperately in the ever-shifting earth and taking off in panicked leaps as they sink into it.

Their screams hit Hiccup like a sudden drop into cold water, or a clumsy paw treading upon one of his. The shock is so great that for a single heartbeat he is numb to it, able only to gasp and wait for the pain to strike.

They are crying _distress_ and _grief _and _searching_, howling _loss_, digging frantically in shifted sand, and one of the flock came to cry mourning to them –

There is someone buried there!

Toothless is already diving even as Hiccup grasps for how to say this – his dragon's voice rebels against it. It does not want to be said. Less than a breath, and they are down, bounding past dragons hunched over in numb despair, racing to join the rescuers as they dig to find one of their own past rescue.

Hiccup expects that they will be met with howls of grief and shoves to _there there you there now!_ where they can dig alongside the others – they cannot leave their flock-mate there!

He does not expect the diggers to look up as Toothless races towards them with _sympathy _already humming in his throat, and to freeze all over except their eyes that go wide, wide, wide.

One after another recoils, rears up, leaps back, all staring in shock and screaming pure bafflement, as if not one of them had ever seen _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ before, and take off into the air like seagulls before a hunter.

They leave behind a much larger dragon with a broad, flat-nosed face and a deep red ruff spread out behind and around his head, the color sweeping down his back and the upper sides of his many wings. A long summer of bright sun will burnish the edges of his scales with gold, but for now they are still the white-cream of snow melted and frozen again. The debris of the avalanche is splattered across his underbelly and clotted through the long tendrils that frame his face, as if he had thrust his nose into the earth and rooted around in it. He must be _very _cold, and Hiccup flinches for him, knowing that those tendrils are soft. His broad-finned tail lies despondently in the snow-sand thrown up all around him, half-buried by his own digging, and all his wings are buried in the avalanche.

Cloudjumper does not look up at them. His golden eyes are dull and despairing, fixed on the gouges dug into the earth, and everything in his body howls _heartbreak _deep and true.

And then he looks up, as if it takes all his strength to do so, and his eyes fix on _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _there.

_Cloudjumper? _Hiccup rattles, _(click)-shh-prrrr_, and his whistle of _what?_ flies from his throat as the many-winged dragon leaps for them, knocking black dragon and dragon-feral over into the sand.

Yelping _what what what you this why strange what?_ and _indignation_, Hiccup writhes as Cloudjumper presses his face against him and licks him, unabashed and sloppy.

It is most unlike the dignified guardian who has watched over them all their lives. Cloudjumper has rescued them and scolded them. He has fed them and let them sleep by his side even when they were very wiggly. He has kept them warm when they were cold and carried them when they were tired, even when Toothless sulked in his claws. He has swatted them away from high ledges and comforted their small bruises with most attentive looking.

Now he pushes his flat nose against the dragon-feral hard enough to knock Hiccup over at once, were he not already upside-down on his back and squirming in the sand that gets everywhere beneath his scale-skins and is cold there besides.

_You_, Cloudjumper grunts, a relief so deep it can only be _desperation _in his small sounds. He breathes a _whuff _at Hiccup and gulps down his scent again, and a moment later pours all the same uncharacteristic affection out on Toothless as well.

Toothless shrieks _surprise _and _mockery _and _disbelief_, howling a muffled _what this this stop no-more Cloudjumper what silly silly why silly yes very-much-so hatchling-no why me offended me big yes fierce let-me-up yes now!_

Their guardian ignores every squawk and squirm and kick of Toothless' protest. He pins him down with a single wing-claw even as he fits another claw around Hiccup's chest where he has rolled up to a more comfortable sitting, and washes Toothless all over as if the black dragon was a very small hatchling indeed.

Toothless screams with pure wrathand baffled humiliation, and claws at Cloudjumper who _never _does this, and it does not help at all.

On Cloudjumper's other side, Hiccup rests his paws on the red-gold dragon's wing-claw, and stacks his jaw atop them, and watches this performance with a thrumming purr. He has not forgotten the avalanche, or that there might be a dragon-cousin buried beneath it, but Cloudjumper's chirps of _safe safe safe you hatchlings-mine you good here yes relief worried frightened no-danger no-danger now _are a joy he is happy to share.

He simply does not understand why Cloudjumper is so relieved to find them here.

_Frightened? _Hiccup chirrs, a mother's soft sound to her hatchlings, but Cloudjumper does not snort at him. His flanks and chest heave in a deep gasp, and he nudges his nose against Toothless – Toothless snaps at him, fangs clicking, and manages to tear himself away at last – and Hiccup too.

_Yes, _Cloudjumper looks at him, and raises his head to look over his shoulder all the way. A powerful shudder runs through his body, and he swallows down a quiet sound of old, aching grief – Hiccup can see the lump of the sound travel down his pale throat like a fish.

All around them, their flock-mates land again, folding their wings tentatively and piping _confusion_. Little Thin Stripes and Hate That Bird and You Splash peer at Toothless, who has thrown himself to the sand and rolled in it to scrub off Cloudjumper's licking, as he shakes himself fiercely. Sand and snow fly, and Ice Headbutt shutters her eyes against it, but only for a moment. As soon as Toothless stops, they are staring again, making little sounds of _amazement_ and gazing at him in wonder.

Toothless draws himself into a crouch that screams _offended _louder than seagulls, narrows his eyes at the oglers so fascinated by his shame, and shakes his head so hard Hiccup can hear his ear-flaps snapping against his skull.

A quiet _whuff _of breath turns Hiccup back to Cloudjumper again, and he follows their guardian's eyes, _you there look_, to where the dragons had been digging before.

The dragon-feral picks his way over rucked-up drifts of wet sand and gashes torn deep into the earth by dragon claws, the steps of his usually easy all-paws scramble now hesitant with a fear he cannot name. He steps lightly past shreds of old metal and fragments of charred wood, and a piece of torn-off claw longer than his forepaw. Scales gleam alongside the debris, but among it all, he sees a deep drift of pale sand and the wide arc that dragon paws have trodden around it.

It looks like a waiting, half-buried trap looks, when he and Toothless have marked it in warning and flown home to fetch some tool to break it with. Anticipation and dread tangle in Hiccup's chest, and he rears up to his hind legs to look.

The sight drives all the breath from his chest and freezes his heart ice-cold.

Half-buried in that untouched, deadly snow, a motionless expanse of scales gleams back at the sun.

They are jet-black, dark as winter's midnight, black as the heart of the storm.

_Toothless!_ Hiccup's soul screams, and he lunges towards those scales before his hindlegs give out beneath him, paws outstretched to drag his heart's-love from the snow that _cannot have his Toothless –!_

And then he stops short, and looks back over his shoulder to where Toothless sits, alive and safe and sulking. He licks his chest indignantly and spits the taste into the sand for Cloudjumper to notice, grumbling _me big me big fierce brave hatchling no hatchling you-wait!_ His ear-flaps come up as he senses Hiccup's shock and terror, and at once he springs _alert _and races to his Hiccup-self's side in a single powerful leap.

Toothless' shoulder strikes his, warm and alive and as familiar as his own paws, and Hiccup sags with relief, slipping down to a crouch again – _now _he understands, if he were as big as Cloudjumper he would lick Toothless very thoroughly too – even as the black dragon freezes still in shock of his own.

That could be him – it could be _them_, and Hiccup looks at the torn-up earth with new eyes.

_Me?_ he signals, touching one paw to his chest and glancing at Cloudjumper. They had been looking for him all around, where a dragon who could only have been Toothless laid buried beneath an avalanche? All the flock knows that Hiccup and Toothless are always together. They are each other really. A dragon who sees _(click)-phuh _alone has only to wait. _Tt-th-ss _will be along before they can grow bored.

Cloudjumper whistles _yes _with relief great enough to drown in.

The little dragon blinks _gratitude _at their mother's mate even as his heart quails. The smears of mud and sand and snow all across Cloudjumper's underbelly and claws say that he was searching very hard, and so Hiccup does not tell him that if that had been Toothless lost there, and Hiccup beside him, Cloudjumper should leave them there together.

But Toothless is beside him now, and _alive alive alive_, trembling and piping small sounds of _disbelief _and _no no no what wrong very-much-so that there what what? _The black dragon squeezes his green eyes shut and shakes his head like he has sneezed hard enough to push himself from a ledge, but when he opens one eye again, those impossible black scales are still there.

There are no others like them – how can there be one here?

He must know, and so Hiccup slinks forward, slow and careful, every paw set down lightly. He creeps across the untouched snow-mixed sand, and reaches out one paw to touch, as delicately as if the poor buried dragon might startle and wake.

But the feel of it is strange, wrong somehow, and Hiccup sits back on his haunches, mind working frantically. The buried dragon shifts too easily when he pushes against it, and its scales against his bare skin send a crackling shiver down his spine and bitter horror to his throat.

He _knows _this…

_Tt-th-ss! _Hiccup cries, startling backwards, and beckons his dragon-self to him. He scrubs his paws against the sand, braces himself, and grabs, pulling backwards as hard as he can. It moves.

At first, Toothless refuses as Hiccup gestures and whistles to him, pleading. But the black dragon flinches, shudders _revulsion_, and carefully takes the loosened scales into his jaws.

Between the two of them, it comes free and spills out across the sand – a great gush of black scales, tumbling all over itself, boneless and bodiless and violated.

Not a dragon's body: only its skin, cut and worked and remade to serve an enemy of all dragons, with broken, rusted metal driven through it.

Their audience of would-be rescuers has crept closer as they worked, but the sight of it is too much for many of them, and fluttering wings and screams of _horrorterrordisgust_ explode all around again.

Hiccup and Toothless remain, caught by grief and guilt. They had _forgotten _it, when it is all that remains of one _like them!_

The Knotted Man who had hated all things, but dragons most of all; who had commanded an Alpha somehow; who had torn _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ apart and put them in cages far from each other; who had brought his fierce ones and his Alpha-that-followed to the nest and told them to kill –

The Knotted Man had worn the skin of a black dragon as a cloak, boasting of his murder with twisted pride. Hiccup and Toothless had fought him on the shore of their sanctuary, striking-stick and hate like foaming madness, set against flame and claw and blade.

Hiccup had torn the poor dead thing from his shoulders, so he could no longer hide behind such a wrongness, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _had killed the Knotted Man as a monster.

To protect each other. To protect their family and their home. To free the fierce ones with metal fixed to their scales. To stop a wrongness that would not stop until it destroyed them all. They could have done nothing else.

If the battle had been chaos, what followed had been more so. Their flock-mates had bled and hurt and cried out for paws that could soothe wounds. Dragons newly freed from an Alpha who did not _deserve _to lead them had whimpered _confusion_ or snarled defensive _fear._ Human ships that were the enemy had limped away from their shores, watched most fiercely by those dragons still flying. Human ships that held _pfikingr_-allies sailed away as well. The flock grieved for their dead and shook their nightmares away and swept hatchlings with no mothers to sleep beside now into the paws of new mothers.

New ice replaced shattered ice. The sand and the ever-present snow shifted beneath wind and tide, burying the scattered traces of a war of dragon against dragon.

And the dragon's skin had been lost and forgotten.

_Sorry_, Hiccup whimpers to it now, pressing a paw to it. He can bear the touch of it, dead thing that it is – how could he not? How could he leave one _like them_ to be alone?

_Sorry sorry us here look here now sorry safe you safe…_but the sounds die in his throat. A lie.

Instead, he curls up beside it and sings that same keening, grieving _mourning _very softly to it.

Beside him, Toothless touches his nose to the skin, scenting at it. He does not recoil, fangs bared; he does not lick _disgust _from his jaws. Time and the earth have washed away the last traces of the Knotted Man's scent.

_Good!_ Toothless snorts at it, and thumps his tail down. He cries out the bright sound that means _free_, fierce and exhilarated but quiet now, and joins his voice to Hiccup's, singing it _goodbye _until they both fall silent.

* * *

Cloudjumper's shadow moves over them both, familiar and comforting. Hiccup does not stir, eyes still fixed on the skin, but Toothless half-crouches a stubborn _no! _and a warning glare with the tip of his tongue just showing – _no lick!_

Cloudjumper rolls his eyes at the black dragon, but shudders at the sight of the skin. His gaze flicks away from it, and his claws shuffle beneath him as if he, too, wants to leap away.

_Fire_, he shows them, only a flicker of flame held ready in his jaws. Dragons burn their dead.

Dragons have no concept of ghosts, either, so Hiccup understands that the dragon _like them_ is gone. He knows that it is no longer _like them_ in the way that matters most, but still, it is hard for him to draw away. It has been alone so long! He brushes one paw across it, grooming stray sand and unmelted snow from it, and old ashes stain his skin.

Toothless ducks his head beneath Hiccup's chest, hiding his eyes and filling his nose with _life _and the scent of his Hiccup_-beloved-one,_ and Hiccup wraps himself around his dragon-self as far as he can. For Toothless, then, he can stumble away from the dead thing, ungainly on his hind legs and backwards, but with nowhere to fall. For Toothless, he can lead the black dragon away from one _like them_, and he can let it go.

For Cloudjumper, he can free one paw and rest it against their guardian's flat nose when the red-gold dragon lowers it to him, fire swallowed down for just one moment more. _Love-you_, he blinks at Cloudjumper, and _gratitude_, and _sorry-sympathy_, for there is _reluctance _in every line of Cloudjumper's body.

But Hiccup has no blasting-fire, only his own small heart-fire within, and he could not ask this thing of Toothless.

Cloudjumper pushes _you here_ against his paw, and sets his shoulders _courage_, and rears up with fire blazing in his throat.

A white-hot inferno lances down and engulfs the dragon's skin, so hot that sand snaps, and ice screams, and Hiccup's eyes water, but he will not look away.

Bright spots float across his vision when Cloudjumper lets his fire die, settling back into the suddenly dry sand with all his wings folded again. Some bright spots are real. Hate That Bird and Little Thin Stripes have returned, and brought Tell Me Again down from her perch – someone else will watch the hatchlings – with Licks Stones and Kicks In Dreams descending to see another dragon freed from the Knotted Man like they were. Tap Tap Tap lashes his tail anxiously, and Lookout clings to his shoulder, peering down from their rock ledge.

The little dragon looks down again and tenses as if to spring away, wary. Toothless pulls away – but not very far – and turns to look as well.

Ash and sand are drifting away, but the skin remains, unmarked, still there.

Whimpers and shrieks start from many different throats, and Hiccup whistles for attention before his flock-mates can flee in startled fear or turn to arguing among themselves. He and Toothless are the closest the dead thing has to close-kin – that is obvious – so the various dragons listen.

_You all,_ he signals, _you fire yes fierce please you-all help please need,_ and lowers his eyes and his shoulders _respect_, not the absolute cringe before the Alpha, but only the crouch of a flock-mate asking for a favor.

The gathered dragons raise their heads _proud_ and blink _sympathy_, shudder _wrongness_ at the skin that defied Cloudjumper's flame, puff their chests out _challenged ready you-watch yes gonna-do-it confident sure_.

The firestorm that blazes down upon it – Smooth Stone Rough, who is not a fast flyer, turns up in time to hover above it all and pour out thin spittle that eats away stone – is bright enough that even dragons much bigger than Hiccup must shutter their eyes against it.

The dead skin resists it all.

_Don't-know_, Tell Me Again shrugs to Hiccup and Toothless, after they have all paced around it and put their heads on one side to watch it sideways. They have bristled away from it. They have tested their fires upon half-buried broken wood, and on each other. Somewhere down the beach, Hate That Bird has caught up to Lookout and is dragging her by her tail into the ocean as she screams _no no no sorry sorry me let-me-go NOT SORRY!_

Step by step, Toothless creeps forward over the sand towards the skin. A _pop!_ of cooling sand beneath his belly makes him jump, but not as high as Tap Tap Tap does when Toothless paws the skin towards him.

It moves like a puddle, not like a dragon's body at all. As Hiccup looks around, it is clear in the signals of every dragon-cousin there and every flock-mate coming to look that, more than the instinctive chilling _wrongness_ of a dead dragon, it is simply _too strange_.

He catches Toothless' eye, and Toothless crouches _unhappy _and _uncertain _both, one wing spread out over the skin to protect it. _What now?_ the black dragon whistles, a low questioning noise and a cocked head that invites a suggestion or a pounce.

One thing they are sure of: it cannot stay here.

Hiccup bares his fangs _frustration_, feeling his snub nose wrinkle, and glances around, fishing for a clever thought or a good new-strange idea or even to flip everything over and bite into its soft underbelly.

Beyond all the dragons, the ocean roars, and the horizon beckons, and Hiccup knows what he and Toothless must do now.

One thing they have _always _been sure of: here is not the only place there is.

* * *

_To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Freefall**_**, Part Three**

"Can I ask you something, chief?"

Astrid stretches out her legs, enjoying the long, steady burn after a good morning's run. She prefers to be awake before almost anyone else, nothing else on the move but a few drowsy birds and the people who like to cook. Running wakes up her lungs and her legs and her mind – and she needs every one of them, keeping up with Berk's Vikings – as her feet pound against the solid earth of her village, her island, hers, hers, hers.

She loves waking up early because she's chosen to. All her life, dragon screams have shoved her from her bed with an axe in her hand and dread in her throat. She's woken on her feet already, ready to run towards the sounds of battle and fight for her life again.

She's still woken by early-morning dragon screams, true. But at least now they're just Berk's semi-resident dragon flock entertaining themselves, or Stormfly chasing them away and stalking up and down in front of Astrid's door crowing with pride.

These days, all Astrid needs to do is roll out of bed and brush out the long hair she no longer braids. She doesn't need to worry about it falling into her eyes in sudden battle anymore. She can slip a knife into a belt sheath and leave her battle-axe behind, strap on her boots, assure Stormfly on her way past that she's a very good Stormfly indeed, and take off running in any direction she chooses.

She can watch the sun rise when she's not watching her feet, rap her bootheels against the various bridges and ramps that allow the village to sprawl over their corner of the island, smell fresh bread before she has to smell hungry Vikings along with it, throw pebbles for the Terrible Terrors, and still feel like she's alone in the world.

Most days Stormfly catches up with her, and Astrid doesn't mind a bit. She never feels like Stormfly's intruding – as unbelievable as it can be, the blue-dappled Nadder is her friend. She wonders what Stormfly thinks her human friend is doing, when she runs without going anywhere much.

Sometimes Stormfly will hover over her, gliding easily, and Astrid will dodge and tumble, darting back and forth trying to escape her dragon friend's shadow until she's breathless with laughter more than effort.

Her last stop before the day truly begins is always at Stoick's house, standing unburnt and tall and alone on a headland over the sea.

The mug of clear water he's set out ready for her is cool in her hand, and she sips at it carefully, rolling one ankle. One of the bridge footings has shifted; she'll have to get someone out there before the kids decide to have a rabbit race over it and invite Fishlegs' Gronkle horde.

"What's with the asking of a sudden?" Stoick snorts, raising one eyebrow incredulously. "Not if you ask like that, though. Don't make me tell you again."

Astrid doesn't quite squirm, but she does glance away and mutter, "It just doesn't feel right."

"Nonsense. If you don't believe it, Astrid, no one else will."

She grimaces. She's fought beside Stoick and hung off his arm demanding answers. She's fought _with _him, and she's stood quietly at his side just watching, determined to learn everything she could so that she could do that one day, too. And now _one day _is here, and sometimes she's got no idea what to do with it. When she's got time to think about it, that is, which is usually no more than these mornings.

He won't let her call him _chief _anymore. It's not his title anymore. It's hers.

Astrid is the Chief of Berk.

But she can't bring herself to call Stoick by just his name. "Can I ask you something, then, _sir?_"

Not fooled at all, her mentor snorts. "Work on that," he orders, and for a moment he's all the invincible giant whose shadow she was happy to stand in, snapping her back to heel when she'd run too far or lost her temper. "And ask, already."

Astrid sets the cup down on the lid of the chest beside her, watching Stoick's hands work. It doesn't seem real that such giant hands could hold such a tiny blade without losing it, but he's already carved the edges away from today's block of scrap wood. The new surface shows bright golden-brown, the lines of it clear. Astrid wonders what he sees waiting in it, and regrets she'll never know. It'll be gone by sundown.

They always are.

She knows this was his choice. He'd told her privately one evening that he was ready to step down, one arm still held stiffly across his chest as if to keep his heart in place. At the time, she'd known it was the right decision. But sometimes all she wants is her mentor back beside her.

"Why me?" she blurts out.

Ah, she's gotten both eyebrows to go up this time. "Why you _what?" _Stoick repeats, hands faltering for a moment as another long curl of shaved-off wood falls to the hard-trodden floor.

She has to clamp her hands in her lap, feeling the metal of her bracers cut into her fingers, to keep from thumbing at the crease she can feel between her eyes. She'd touched it _once_, when it mattered. Ash smudged away on her fingers, and horror choked her throat, every doubt and quavering nerve springing back to life. She'd ruined it! Already! What if someone saw, she'd thought wildly, and judged her unworthy after all, and she'd be the first chief to be laughed out of her too-big chair before she'd even sat down in it?

Not that she'd needed to try it out for size. Stoick's chair – her chair now – was always going to be too big.

But in that panicked moment, she'd acted on instinct, pressing her fingers to her lips.

Gothi had marked her as she knelt, with a still-pale Stoick watching proudly, even if Gobber had been propping him up. But Astrid had marked herself.

Every pang of duty since then has tasted of ashes, and she can't spit them out, so she'll just have to swallow them down.

"Of all the children on Berk," she answers, laying it out at last, "why'd you look at _me_ and say, 'Oh yes, her! She'll be the next chief.' I was just a kid…and I was kind of a brat."

Stoick chuckles, and Astrid finds she doesn't mind all that much. It's good to hear him laugh.

Astrid lost her parents so early, she doesn't even remember why. Dragons, maybe; every family on Berk has such a hole in it somewhere, patched over as best they can just to keep on going. Stoick is no exception.

She remembers her Uncle Finn much better, although sometimes she wonders how tall he really was. To her, he'd seemed as tall as a tree, the cleverest and boldest and funniest person in the entire world, always ready with a game or a joke or an errand for a little girl with chunky blonde pigtails to run as quick as she could. He'd let her stay up as late as she wanted, and sleep where she dropped, and when she'd grabbed for an eating-knife, he'd laughed and taken it from her with a wink.

She'd woken up the next morning to the prettiest, sharpest little dagger she'd ever seen. Finn had taught her how to stab and block and parry with it, waving off the friend he'd stolen it from with the excuse that even his little niece was better with it than he was. The man had stomped away sulking, and Astrid had truly believed that her Finn could do anything.

He'd taught her to sail – and spilled her into the water more times than she could count until she'd tied a rope to the mast and to her waist, ready for the next time. He'd let her tag along while he and his friends shouted and gambled and dared each other to jump across deeper ravines and higher rooftops, or to bait the dragons held captive in the arena. He'd encouraged her to throw punches when his friends patted her on the head or Snotlout smashed eggs in her hair, and showed her how to throw them better, laughing.

He hadn't seen the nights she'd spent sharpening her little dagger after blunting it against every tree and log and wagon in her path, practicing those same stabs and blocks and parries until she dreamed of them. He'd never minded her sneaking out to the pastures, past the lookouts and the guards, to land flurries of punches against drowsing, sluggish yak sides. But then, sometimes he'd looked surprised when she'd stumbled back through their door, panting as she fled the lowing avalanche that was a finally-provoked yak, like he hadn't known she'd been gone.

She'd tried to comfort him when he lurched home one night, slipping from beneath her little low-slung cot – her agreed-upon hiding place when the dragons came – like she hadn't sneaked out after him to watch him be wonderful. She'd patted his shoulder with her small hands when he slumped to the floor, dripping wet and shuddering with his head in his much bigger ones, and not understood why he'd pushed her away.

So she'd picked up her little dagger and marched out that door, off to _get _whatever had hurt her Finn. She'd walked straight into jeering and scowls, knocking the breath out of her chest like a trapdoor had opened there. The warriors' scorn hadn't been aimed at her, but she'd felt their disdain as if it had been.

He'd stopped taking her sailing after that. Stopped bringing her along while his friends did ridiculous things. Put bread and meat and stew out for her, but stopped telling stories with onion skins and nutshells. Left her on her own to play with children her own age, except Astrid had already figured out that all the children her own age were _stupid_, and gone off alone to attack more trees and watch for dragons. It was _their _fault her Finn was sad.

He'd sailed away, and days without him had turned to weeks, and to months, and one day she'd looked up from her corner in the Great Hall to find Stoick there with grim eyes.

She'd cried, hating herself for it, scrubbing away the tears as soon as they fell, and the chief had stood there patiently. He hadn't patted her hair and told her it would be all right. He hadn't clucked over her like so many people would, once word spread. He hadn't said, "Oh, poor girl."

He'd just stood there, hiding her from the people scattered around the Hall in worlds of their own that weren't ending, letting her rage.

When she'd stopped crying, breath hitching with the effort it took to hold all that rage inside, he'd said only, "Would you like to stay with me, for a while?"

Now, Stoick shakes his head and says, "Ah, Astrid…" and again she notices the grey flooding through his hair and beard. It's all but overwhelmed the red, though the red still shows through in the daylight. But sometimes he doesn't go outside for days.

She's worried for him, although he'll brush her concerns away if she says anything. Some days, she can look past the sharp-drawn lines on his face that pain drew there over the winter, or the tremble in his hands that he tries so hard to control, but not the tired slump to his shoulders.

Beside her very worst moments, Astrid can set the memory of her mentor and her chief slumping into that half-shoveled snowbank, and the long heartbeats as heads turned, waiting for him to rise. And waiting. And waiting.

"You were fierce," Stoick says, "but you were never cruel, unless someone rightly deserved it. You tried, and you kept trying, and you didn't stop until you had it right. Until you were better than anyone else. Because I watched you follow your feckless uncle and his pack of lackeys –"

"He wasn't –" Astrid protests. Somewhere inside her, a fierce little girl who hated her too-cute cheeks and had sat for hours alone on the edge of the dragon arena, listening to the muffled roars of the caged monsters and dreaming of the day she'd be strong enough to fight them all, leaps to her feet with a knife in her hand.

"No, Astrid," Stoick cuts her off before she can get another word out. "You worshipped Finn. I knew him. He was Snotlout with charm."

She can't help the face she pulls. "Ewwww…"

"And height."

"_Chief!_" she blurts out – damn, he may have a point.

"You followed them," he repeats, but she can see the smirk. It matches hers. "But you never let them draw you into their foolishness. They could have hurt you badly, you know that? I was ready to take you away the moment Finn let you get hurt. But you had the good sense not to get involved. I could see you watching the world and planning how to make it yours."

"Oh," Astrid says, glad she's never been one to blush.

Stoick bows his head over the chunk of wood, whittling away a corner. The knife gets caught in a knot, and he works it carefully around the obstacle. "You reminded me of her, actually," he says, as if it's a confession.

"Of…"

"She and I, we talked about a son, you know. How much I wanted –" The knife bites into the wood and stops just a hair away from Stoick's finger. "Never told her – would have wanted daughters, too, if the gods had been good enough to us. Little girls to scowl at the world and push people to be better and climb all the trees their brothers did. Girls just like her. If we'd had time."

Valka. He can only be talking about Valka, and Astrid flinches inside, where he can't see. "I shouldn't have asked," she says, regretting that her doubts have brought him here.

His wife has been gone for over twenty years now, taken to live among dragons and die in the trackless wild, and it's clearer than ever that he loves her still. In all the time Astrid had spent with him growing up, as they'd protected Berk from itself and dragons both, Stoick had never even spoken of Valka, or of their son.

She'd only learned they'd existed when she'd asked others, "Why doesn't the chief have a family?" and they'd given the saddest – but far too common – answer on Berk: _he did_.

"Told you, you could ask," he says, with a shake of his head, and manages a smile. "Chief."

Astrid is just drawing in a breath to apologize again – he'll doubtless tell her not to, again – when there's an all-too-familiar shriek from outside. She turns to look reflexively, already rolling her eyes.

"Ah, go on," Stoick dismisses her. "Rescue them if you must."

"Nothing can rescue those two," Astrid mutters, but she drinks the last of her water and rises into a stretch. Her light armor and knife settle as she shrugs her shoulders, and she tosses, "Wish me luck," back towards Stoick as she turns to go.

"Of the gods themselves," he offers. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him bend to his carving again. Behind him, the hearth-fire waits to devour it before dark.

"See if you can head off Gobber, while you're at it?" Stoick requests, glancing up. "If I hear one more thing about that snowblower…"

Astrid huffs. "If _I_ hear one more thing about that snowblower…" she counters, but stops mid-thought. She knows Stoick's house well – she used to live here – but while the little carved dragon on the sideboard is familiar, it's in the wrong place. "How did this get here?"

Its lines are familiar in her hand, and it gazes up at her with quizzical eyes. It's mostly Terror-shaped, but it's hard to tell at this size. The important thing about it is – has always been – that its little body is neither angry, nor in pain.

"It's mine," says Stoick. "Hilda found it somewhere or other, brought it along with her yesterday. Distract her, too, would you? She can't cook."

"I know. I'll do what I can. You made this?" She'd had no idea…

"Years ago. Why?"

Astrid smiles for real. "I gave this to Hiccup once, when he was here." When dragons were still the enemy, when a frightened feral boy and a wounded Night Fury had been stranded on their western shore, when Astrid had thought only of what a weapon a boy who could talk to dragons might be. When she'd thought she could teach a dragon to be human. When she'd still had so much to learn.

"He liked it. Don't burn it, all right?"

* * *

Someone – probably Gobber – had once told Astrid that a good warrior knows how to duck, but a great warrior knows _when_. Now that she thinks about it, she's pretty sure it had been during her training days in the dragon arena, and "when" had closely involved having a dragon's tail or jaws or claws scything over her head.

Because Astrid is a damn fine warrior indeed, she ducks just as two pairs of flailing hobnailed boots fly by. Because it's one of those days, the boots are attached to Ruffnut and Tuffnut, yelling insults and demands and kicking each other by accident. Or maybe on purpose. It's hard to tell with the twins.

Although, to be fair, there is a dragon involved.

"What, again?" she demands in their general direction – up. Not that she's surprised. "You guys realize that's basically dragon bait, right?"

Wings beating frantically, Barf and Belch wallow through the air, the twins' ridiculous dead shark held firmly in their claws. The two-headed Zippleback doesn't fly backwards well – gods know, the twins have tried hard enough to get it/them to. It doesn't help that Ruffnut and Tuffnut are stubbornly clinging to the shark's snout and tail, and a trail of new crashes and scuff marks mark their haphazard reverse flight around the headland. It's a minor miracle Barf and Belch haven't just dropped their sometime riders in the sea.

"It's mine!" Ruffnut yells at her. "Make 'em – give it – back!" She wrenches at her end of the shark, her helmet knocking against Tuffnut's. "Gerrout of my face!"

"You get out of my face! It's mine!" Tuffnut objects immediately. "I found it first!"

And Astrid has regretted that day ever since.

"You _stepped _on it! Doesn't count! And they – can't – have – it!" She punctuates each word with kicks, and somehow only the last one hits her brother.

"It's gonna go in the treehouse, and it'll – ow! – scare _everyone_ –"

"– unless they know the password!"

Astrid has a brief, sudden, horrible vision of the indestructible dead shark being dropped on the heads of unsuspecting passersby. Possibly on a string to be reeled back up again.

"Things to do today," she mutters to Stormfly, who has peeked her head around the corner of Stoick's house with an inquisitive warble. "Warning stones. Lots of them, all around the forest. Beware of shark. Also," she adds, as if the Nadder might be taking notes for her, "hide the bouncy tethers."

The twins' giant treehouse project is terrifying enough. For some reason, over the winter, Ruffnut and Tuffnut had decided that they wanted to build a sprawling dragon-access-only treehouse in the tallest tree in Berk's forest.

Maybe Astrid should have stopped them then, but it kept them busy and out of her hair for _months_ as their plans grew increasingly fantastic. And it might make a decent watchtower one day. The twins have knocked their own house down enough times that they've gotten surprisingly good at fixing things. Or maybe they just really like waving hammers around. Astrid's betting on the latter.

There are so many things she could say, from "Don't tell me you've finished the treehouse already," to the well-trained command "Drop it!" but as soon as all of them spring to mind, Astrid comes to a freeing realization.

This is not her problem.

"You have fun with that," Astrid tells them as the shark begins to slip from the Zippleback's claws, and walks on.

She manages to get all the way home before anyone else spots her, enjoying the sensation of sneaking around her own village. Any little apprentice she takes on one day is going to have so much trouble sneaking out. Astrid knows _all _the hiding places.

Chuckling to herself at the thought, she washes her hands and face in the basin Stormfly hasn't managed to knock over yet. She picks a couple of stray shark scales out of her hair, and she shrugs on her bearskin cloak. It's still new enough that she takes a moment to run an admiring hand over it first, savoring the feeling. Rough and smooth both at once, deep and dense and more colorful than it looks at first glance – it's a constant reminder of who she wants to be. Here in the shadows of her home, it's a simple, humble brown, but out in the sunlight, she's seen all the golden ochres and reddish undertones of a warm autumn and a good harvest hidden in its depths.

This isn't a piece of Stoick's cloak, any half of which could bury her without a trace. This is _hers_. Sure, she'd refused to sail away half the year to hunt it – Stormfly was faster, she'd argued when the older members of the tribe fussed and grumbled. But she'd taken up her axe and her bow, just as she was supposed to, and for a couple of days it had just been her and Stormfly and her thoughts, dreaming of everything she wanted to do as chief, and thinking of everyone whose lives rested in her hands.

There had also been a bear.

Stormfly still prefers chicken, but she'd been more than willing to help Astrid clean up the carcass, and she'd flown both Viking chief and bear pelt back to Berk long before it could spoil.

The weight on her shoulders has quickly become familiar, and it doesn't hurt that it's lovely and warm.

It helps her to remember, every time she walks into the village proper and sees all eyes turn to her, that she's not setting her heels for a dragon charge. She trained to do that all her life, but she trained for this too.

She's always wanted it, from the moment Stoick had asked her little-girl self, "Do you see?" one Gripe Day and she'd realized that she _did_, she'd seen how he'd listened to both men, each claiming the twin lambs one's ewe had birthed and the other's ram had sired, and talked to them until they'd shaken hands and agreed to fix the fence together.

_I could do that_, Astrid had thought that day, and immediately, her heart soaring, _Oh! I am doing to do that!_

Berk is her home, and always will be, and she loves almost everything about it.

Well, she could do without Snotlout's former gang of former minions, which he lost control of the moment he lost interest in taking them all off to be pirates.

Astrid's pretty sure that had something to do with Eret and his now-former dragon trappers coming to live on Berk for good, even if they're not always here. They're currently off on a trading run, and have been for a while. Nothing's ever going to get Eret off that ship for good, not even the twins conspiring to name it.

In related news, Astrid has revoked the twins' paint privileges _forever_, and far, far too late.

A pack of children race past her trailing leaf-kites for the Terrible Terrors to chase, a flurry of "Hi Astrid! Hi Astrid! No, chief! She's the chief, stupidhead! Hi Chief Astrid!" tossed over their shoulders as they swarm Stormfly. The Nadder, stalking in Astrid's wake with her chest puffed out proudly, goes into a well-trained "Freeze!" as they leap over her claws and pat her legs and sides.

A couple of gossiping wives, sitting on the edge of the well with their water buckets in their laps, break off from whispering and giggling together to wave good morning and ask her to do something about the Terrors. "They're raidin' me ovens!" Myka protests. "They're wee cuties, but they're right thieves, and no' afeared of the fire a' all, no' when there's bread t' be taken!"

There might not be a single Terror left living wild in Berk's forests these days. That old copy of the _Book of Dragons _has so much to answer for: why hadn't it mentioned that Terrors liked _fun?_ They're everywhere in the village, and fearless, and into everything.

Myka points out a handful of them, hanging off a windowsill, front claws and noses peering over the edge, tails waving so hard they'll probably knock themselves off before anyone can throw a stick at them. "I'll do what I can," Astrid promises. Sometimes the Terrors listen to her. Sometimes they just like the sound of her voice, and do whatever they'd wanted to do anyway. "Try baking them a loaf of their own. Roll it down the hill, and they'll be so busy chasing it they'll forget about the rest."

She checks in with a cluster of over-muscled men who should really put shirts on, yesterday's sawdust still caked in their beards. They're all are standing around the loosely-defined village square and the wagons parked there. Inevitably, they're arguing. Loudly. Out of the corner of her eye, Astrid spots Myka pulling a face at her younger brother, who's right in the middle of it all.

"What's happened here, guys?" Astrid breaks in, and seven men try to talk at once.

By the time she's agreed that Myk's cart has thrown a wheel, and talked Heming into taking apart the wrecked and rotting wagon he's been swearing he'll fix any day now for years, the sun is well up and the loggers can't get anywhere because there's a giant Monstrous Nightmare asleep in the middle of the road.

"Oh, Boo…" Astrid shakes her head, rolls her eyes, and heroically volunteers to be the person on the other end of the designated Boo Poky Stick, which is an actual thing that they have lying around the village these days.

"That is the single laziest Nightmare I've ever seen," she tells Stormfly as the silvery-blue dragon shakes her wings out, yawns like the Midgard Serpent, and lumbers away into the air to find another, even more inconvenient, napping spot. Boo seems to consider biting too much like work, but Stormfly is hackled and at the ready to defend her human if necessary.

The Nadder lets all her spikes fall back into place, and burbles smugly.

She dutifully admires the pretty rock Tam found in the harbor, denies any knowledge of Gustav's whereabouts, and sympathizes with the giant tear in Mira's cloak. But if she's going to wave it in the faces of Gronkles, what does she expect? The local Boulder-class dragons might be even-tempered, and they certainly can't eat cloth, but that won't stop them from snapping just to see what it tastes like.

The sun comes out from behind the transient clouds, warming Astrid's golden hair and her shoulders beneath the cloak, and she can't help but tap her foot against the ground as if waiting to leap for the next little, living challenge that rolls her way.

Astrid's gone oar dancing a few times and loved it. If only someone had told her that being the Chief of Berk would feel exactly the same way, she would have spent a lot more time out there, leaping from oar-shaft to oar-shaft in time with the heave and haul of the oars and the beat of the rowing drum, watching her people and their movements, thinking three steps ahead, marking the way the waves roll until her body moves with them, knowing every second that she could fall but believing that she won't, that if she just dances fast enough her reflexes will carry her through.

And if she misses, she tells herself, she'll just get wet. Her people will come back for her, fish her out and throw a felted towel over her and laugh along with her. And life – the everyday, peaceful lives Astrid and three centuries of ancestors have fought so hard for – will go on.

Nothing is even on fire…at least, not until Gobber corners her with a shiny, complicated piece of metal in his single hand.

"Now, I think I've got th' blowback mechanism sorted, so this one shouldnae blow up quite as quickly…"

"Oh no, Gobber," she groans. "Not this again. Remember what happened last time?"

The battered old smith doesn't meet her eyes. "Ah, wasnae so bad," he says, waving the piece of metal dismissively. The other hand is a hammer. "Removed the snow, did it no'?"

Very patiently, Astrid folds her arms and says, "Yes, Gobber, it did."

"So –"

"It _also_," she adds, "removed three tables, a market stall, half a wagon, six barrels of salt cod, one of Sven's sheep…" She moves on to her second hand, counting off fingers, "Gothi's staff _and_ one of her braids, the east wall of Tormund's house, and Norge's hat."

"…was an ugly hat anyway," Gobber mutters.

He's not wrong. "Yes, it was. Look, Gobber, it's a clever idea. And I understand why – look, no one wishes more than you and me that we'd had one months ago. But you cannot have a dragon-powered snowblower. Stoick's going to tell you the same thing. You should ask him." _Sorry, Stoick, but you're spending too much time locked away by yourself._

_I'm the chief, _she tells him firmly, at least in her head, _and I say so._

The smith grumbles, but reluctantly agrees to hold off on rebuilding the misleadingly named snowblower. For now.

By the time she makes it to the Great Hall, Astrid's head is spinning as if she really had been oar dancing, and it's a relief to sit down over some lunch and admire Fishlegs' forever-in-progress _Book of Dragons_. Even with him leaning over her shoulder – and Fishlegs is capable of a lot of lean – it gives her a chance to go back through the morning and pin down something she's missed.

Shark warning signs.

No. Something else.

"…and I think if I go back out to the island with the Typhoomerangs, I can spot where they're keeping their nests," Fishlegs chatters on. "I'd really like to get a sketch for this page, and if I can figure out how many eggs they lay per clutch, we'll have a good idea of how many Typhoomerangs we might have to deal with next year. They grow fast! I think if we leave them alone, they'll leave us alone, but dragons do strange things. I wish _I _could talk to them," he says wistfully, and flips a page. "I wish I knew more about this one, too. Look how pretty it is!"

Astrid looks. Even in nothing but charcoal, the dragon's skin is clearly stippled with small dots, almost like bubbles, and its hide shades from lighter towards its head and darker towards its back. It's holding its small forepaws up before it, long neck and high-finned head reared up and over its own shoulder. She recognizes the drawing style as Hiccup's rather than Fishlegs', and misses her strangest friend.

"I can't believe how good he is. Eret took one look at this and said, 'That's a Raincutter', like he's dealt with them before, so once he gets back, I'm going to see what else he knows."

"That's it," Astrid says aloud.

"That's what? Sorry. Am I it? Am I bothering you? I know you're busy, what with being the chief now and all, you should have said!" Fishlegs' face instantly goes from scholarly delight to piteous remorse.

"No, no," Astrid waves at him. "You're fine. I knew I'd forgotten something."

"Like what?"

"Like Eret's been gone too long. I was starting to get worried." Astrid pushes her plate away, and isn't all that surprised when Snotlout pops up from nowhere, shovels her leftovers onto his own piled-high trencher, and plops himself down on the opposite side of the table.

"Started to? But not now?"

"I got sidetracked. Gothi summoned me to yell at Ivan and Oddi."

Snotlout looks up, interested. The twelve-year-old boys have been hanging around with his gang, and against her will, Astrid thinks back to Finn's friends. Had they really been _that _bad? "What'd they do?" he says with his mouth full.

"Ate a bee."

"What, the same one?"

Astrid gives that the respect it deserves – none at all – and looks around. "Hey, Snotlout, while you're speaking to me, is Ruffnut still keeping that counting board?"

He stabs a piece of salt pork a little too hard. "Don't be stupid." Astrid glares at him, and he reluctantly adds, "…uh, chief. Ruffnut can't count."

Astrid glares harder, because yes, Ruffnut can. "Fishlegs, are there dragons that can set things on fire by looking at them?"

"Ooh, do you think there might be?"

"I have no idea, but I want one. Right now."

Snotlout scowls. Serves him right for stealing her lunch. Berk's Vikings are doing better, now that dragons aren't raiding them every few weeks for every scrap of fish and crate of game they'd ever stocked away. No one has starved to death for two whole winters now, a record Astrid is determined to keep running. But she remembers too many hungry nights doing grim calculations and parceling out too-short rations, too many days foraging through snowbound forests. They all do.

"Twenty-nine," he mutters, because if anyone is keeping track of Ruffnut's I Miss Eret board, other than Ruffnut, it'll be Snotlout.

"He said two weeks," Astrid remembers, feeling her brow furrow. Her hands stay on the table, but she tastes ashes. "That's too long."

She glances around at the guys. Half of her dragonrider team right here already, and it's never that hard to find the others. Just follow the screams. "You guys up for a little flying?"

* * *

"Spread out!" Astrid shouts, projecting to be heard over the wind tearing past and the space between their dragons. It's good practice. She was grateful, the first time she stood on the seat of what she'll always think of as Stoick's chair, with no voice to command the room but her own, and roared for silence over the frightened clamor of everyone on Berk. "And stay within sight of each other! If you can't see everyone else, _everyone_, you have gone too far, and I am _not_ coming back for you!"

"Yeah, what_ever_, Astrid!" Snotlout jeers back.

Stormfly bristles. Astrid pets her quiet and ignores Snotlout with the same absentminded habit. For all his sarcasm, bullying, and endless criticism of everything Astrid has ever done, Snotlout does keep saddling up whenever she tells him to. So far.

"Fearsome and I don't get lost! Worry about Fishlegs, or someone who needs it!"

"Hey!" Fishlegs chimes in. He and Mouse are cruising quite happily in Stormfly's slipstream. "The both of you together couldn't find your way to a lighthouse in the middle of the night, not if there was a plate of food in the way."

"That's not true!"

"Is so!"

"Is not! We'd eat the food first and then find your stupid lighthouse!" Fearsome hears the word _food _and perks up, head turning and jaws opening, and Snotlout yells, "Not here, you dumb lizard!" The big, bratty, always-hungry Nightmare flares, but keeps flying.

"I see a ship!" Ruffnut shouts excitedly, and Astrid turns to look. It takes her a moment to find Barf and Belch, because the Zippleback and the twins could be anywhere, and frequently are. It helps that both twins are so kitted out with random weaponry that they sparkle in the sun.

"Oh wait, no. That's a log. Hey, d'you think that's the log we went sailing on that one time?"

"I dunno. Let's go look! C'mon!"

The Zippleback dives, the twins whoop, and Astrid tugs back on Stormfly's straps, just a bit. As tempting as it is, she's just said that she's not going to leave anyone behind, including the twins.

…even if they have strapped that dead shark to their Zippleback's shoulders, its jaws propped open like it's trying to eat the sky. Maybe she should hide the bouncy tethers under Stoick's bed. He'll understand. The twins will never find them there.

"What do you think's happened to him?" Fishlegs calls, and Astrid glances over her shoulder to see Mouse drawing closer, little wings buzzing.

"Search me," Astrid shrugs. "I mean, I don't think he's suddenly decided to wander off in search of that Land of No Ice Ever Denholm keeps talking about."

"Is that really a place?" Ruffnut interrupts, log forgotten, rising into Astrid's field of vision in what she doubtless hopes is an eerie and inexplicable way. The slightly manic grin doesn't help.

"Maybe. Ask Eret. Actually, no, ask Rorvik. And put your riding straps back on, or Stormfly's going to catch you by an ankle and carry you upside down again."

"That was fun," Ruffnut nods seriously. She places her hands on her hips and stares out at the horizon nobly. Given that Astrid has seen Ruffnut fall over on flat ground, she's dubiously impressed with the other woman's balancing act, unsupported, on Barf's raised head.

"Headfirst into the ocean it is, then," Astrid says, and Ruffnut beams. To Fishlegs, she continues, "Hit a storm? Slow trading? Maybe they found a market and Eret suddenly turned into Ascrida."

Mentioning Berk's most trade-happy matron, always first aboard any trade ship and always the last one off, bargaining down to the last copper scrap and featherweight of grain, gets a chorus of groans.

"Nobody's that bad," says Snotlout.

Astrid isn't too worried. Eret's got as capable a band of warriors and hunters as Astrid's ever met. They're a team. One day she'll get her dragon riders there, although she's not likely to tell her riders – or Eret – this anytime soon. "It's not like all dragons are as friendly as ours. Maybe a Scauldron took a chunk out of his ship and they're laid up somewhere, patching the hole."

After their victory over Drago Bludvist last year, Eret and his crew had tagged along back to Berk, insisting that they were only going to get their feet under them, figure out their next job, and then go somewhere warm.

But the trappers had gotten comfortable. They'd made friends. They'd traded favorite recipes and jokes so bad, everyone was still groaning and rolling their eyes the next day. They'd chopped wood and hauled water and blunted cliff edges that frayed belaying ropes along with everyone else. They'd repaired their ship, every one of them moaning over its time in the hands of Drago's army, and they'd sailed away…and then they'd come back.

Astrid had gotten to watch as first Midrag, then Ascanius, then Rorvik, then Grayden, then Andvari, and then a whole flood of former trappers, had put their hand against a dragon's side or nose or shoulder without fear. As a friend.

It had taken all of Astrid's self-control and dignity not to laugh when, on an early, overcast evening as the first true snows began to fall, Eret had tracked Stoick and Astrid both down to the Great Hall.

He'd muttered and grumbled and kicked his toes against the ground, and finally blurted out, "Can we stay?"

That makes Eret's crew Astrid's responsibility, too. She sent them out trading, however skeptical Eret had been about her orders.

"What _are_ these, o most fearsome chieftainess? Most women want armbands and jewels," he'd complained halfheartedly, reading the list she'd given him one sound at a time.

Astrid had punched him in the arm, companionably enough. "Chiefs want seeds," she'd said firmly, and hadn't admitted she wasn't too sure of her spelling, either. "And don't call me chieftainess. Bring lots. We're going to try them all, separately, and see what works."

"And you want to win."

Well, of course Astrid wants to win. "Have you met me at _all?_"

She sent them out. So she'll bring them home.

And having an excuse to fly – to join Stormfly in her world, as Stormfly has become part of hers – isn't hurting Astrid's mood at all.

Spending days out here searching the waves for one distinctive ship doesn't seem like a bad time. Oh, she'll still need to spend her mornings in the village putting everything in order, and her evenings patching up everything that's happened during the day, but in between… She and her team can cover a lot of sea and sky.

Stormfly drops out of one air current and heels into another – Astrid can see her cloak ruffle a different way. She fumbles with the spyglass in one of her saddlebags. "What do you see, girl?" she asks softly.

When there's nothing on the horizon, Astrid settles back into the saddle and resolves to trust Stormfly's nose. They've trained to track. Stormfly found Kolla last autumn, when the little girl wandered away looking for sock-stealing trolls and didn't come home. She can find Eret.

"Good Stormfly," Astrid repeats anyway, patting her Nadder friend's strong neck. "Find Eret, my girl."

Stormfly chirps back to her, and Astrid, Chief of Berk and dragonrider, laughs into the wind.

* * *

They're leagues away from anything like a reasonable southbound sea road, spread out across the sky, when Fishlegs sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles loud enough to be heard back on Berk.

"Look, there!" he says as dragons swirl around him and Mouse.

He points down towards a tiny, tightly forested island Astrid's pretty sure she's never seen before in her life. High cliffs loom over bays so narrow, just the thought of the tide makes Astrid flinch. A ship caught there by a fast-flowing current might as well sail into the mouth of a fabled Submaripper. Those sharp-edged stones have never been blunted by any cliff-breaking team. The tumbling plants overrunning them, dropping down towards the ocean, would do nothing to protect any ship rammed against the rock.

And yet, half-tucked below an overhang, there's a wide-hulled, faintly golden wooden ship, but its carefully polished hull has been scraped down by something, its shine lost. The discolored blotch that had been the twins' attempt at a name – until Eret caught them – almost blends in for once. Its twin masts, stripped of their bright, multicolored sails, look like nothing more than trees that happened to fall over the cliff and get stuck. The deck is strewn with torn-off vines and mud.

It looks like storm debris, some large piece of flotsam that washed into a corner and got stuck there. She can't imagine how invisible it would be from sea level.

"Damn, Fishlegs," Astrid says. "Good eyes."

He beams. "Am _so _not going to ruin them by reading."

Stormfly leads the dive to the ship's deck, pushing in front of Fearsome when he gets aggressive and snapping her tail-spikes open in his face. Snotlout squalls protest, which Astrid ignores. She's more concerned with the ship and its crew.

"Eret?" she calls out, as if the sound of four dragons landing wasn't enough to get anyone's attention. "Guys? Anyone here?"

There's silence just long enough for Snotlout to pipe up with, "So, _can _I have this if –", and then the big hatch in the center of the deck creaks open.

"Astrid?" A narrow bar of daylight shows familiar eyes…and the crossbow propped on the deck next to them, arrowhead gleaming sharply. "What the – what are you doing here?"

"Eret-son-of-Eret!" Ruffnut proclaims, holding her hands up like she's announcing him for something, then tilting them down towards the deck. "We come to rescue you! With much heroics!"

"And also shouting!" is Tuffnut's contribution. "And a shark."

Astrid ignores them too, dismounting so she can put her hands on her hips properly. "Me? What are _you _doing? And don't you point that thing at me."

Eret lifts the hatch a little further, enough to climb partway out of the hold, but he glances around as if he expects to see more dragons fall from the sky. "Yeah. I – right. Hey –" Someone scrambles up the ladder behind him, and grabs the crossbow away.

"All gods, Astrid," he says like it's a true prayer. There's no humor in his normally cocksure attitude, no smirk in his voice, and his face has gone pale, the tattoos on his chin standing out like they're fresh. "You're alive. Never mind us. _Were you followed?_"

That's not remotely what Astrid was expecting, and she's momentarily at a loss for words. "By who?" she says finally. Ruffnut and Tuffnut are already trying to peek into the strapped-down sea chests and crates piled carefully in the stern, pulling vines away to get at them. Fishlegs has sidled around Astrid to peer into the hatch and wave hello, counting off familiar faces. Snotlout and Fearsome are preening, looking the very picture of mighty bodyguards, if the picture was drawn by a teenage boy who seriously needed a cold bath. "You know these are my riders."

They've been through a lot together, the five of them. They haven't always liked each other. In fact, they usually don't. But when trouble hits, they stick together. They're a weird bunch, but it's _their _weird, and that's enough. "Everyone else is back on Berk. Where have you been? What happened to your ship? Is everyone all right? Dammit, Eret, people have been worried."

"Touched," the former dragon-trapper mutters, and hands the hatch-cover over to Fishlegs so he can let go. When he climbs out onto the deck, it's with the air of a man who expects to be attacked any second now. He's talking to Astrid, but his eyes are fixed on the horizon, which is strange, because Ruffnut is loose on this ship and a flying tackle hug is in Eret's future.

"No one saw you? You're sure?" His clothes are more bedraggled than usual, and there are dark enough circles under his eyes for Astrid to know he hasn't slept for a couple of days at least. Something has spooked this brash man badly, and the last time she saw him this scared, it was very, very bad.

Astrid rolls her eyes anyway, just to provoke a response. "Only everyone on Berk."

Eret whispers something that's definitely a curse – she makes a note of it for later use – and wipes a hand over his face. "You didn't take the south sea road? Past the island with the Nadder colony, and the crosscurrents a day's sail further?"

She spends more of her travel time on dragonback these days, but Astrid knows where he means. "No, we figured you'd been blown off course or something. That's where you were supposed to be, right?"

He nods as his men begin to file out on deck, many taking deep, relieved breaths of fresher air and blinking in the sunlight. How long have they been down there – _hiding _down there? Sneaking out at night, maybe, but everything about this ship and Eret's questions says they don't want to be seen.

Leaving Astrid with one very bad question.

Who's hunting the hunters?

"We were," Eret says. "Astrid. Chief." He never calls her _Chief_. He's a chief of sorts in his own right, and he's never challenged her on her own ground, so she's picked her battles and let it go.

"Get back on your dragons and run for home," he says intently. He moves like he wants to grab her by her shoulders and force her to look her in the eye, but stops. "There's a fleet of ships coming north – we nearly sailed right into them. I turned us around. I did that. I couldn't – not again." He presses an open hand to his chest, flinching like he doesn't know he's doing it, and Astrid feels her own fingers twitch in sympathy.

"Nameless gods, Astrid, get home. You said the sea was clear? We'll be right behind you – clear it up!" he turns to shout to his crew. "Let's move!" Shamelessly eavesdropping men leap into motion, tossing torn vines overboard, pulling down muddy canvas hiding the ship's brightest markings, scrambling onto the bulkheads to chop the pitons embedded in the stone free. Andvari slides back down the ladder and starts passing one of the sails up to Ascanius' waiting hands. Grayden literally ropes Fishlegs in to help with the rigging.

"Eret," Astrid says, trying to get his attention. Stormfly helps, leaning over her head and snorting a sharp, fire-free breath at him.

Eret blinks up at Stormfly and mechanically pats her nose.

"What. Did. You. See?" Astrid repeats sternly, even as fear coils in her gut.

He scrubs a hand over his face again and laughs like a dead man. It's such a bad sound that everyone on deck turns to look at him, even Fearsome. "Fifty ships, sixty. I lost count, we were running. I thought they were between us and Berk, I thought you were all lost, we've been –" He doesn't continue. He doesn't have to. The relief on his crew's faces, as they look at Astrid and her riders, speaks for him.

"They were his ships, Astrid. Or maybe they weren't his to begin with. I knew – I mean, hells, you met the man, he couldn't have organized five bowls into a line without smashing two of 'em, there had to be someone – I should have known it wasn't over. I should have known," he repeats shakily. "And they're coming here."

She doesn't want him to say it. He does anyway.

"_Drago Bludvist's godsdamned fleet _is coming _here_."

Astrid doesn't hesitate, either.

"Saddle up! _Now!_"

* * *

_To be continued._


	4. Chapter 4

_**Freefall**_**, Part Four**

_She is –_

…_she is –_

_She is, and she knows no more._

* * *

Outraged screams and frightened howls, _no no wrongness fear beware! beware! alarm alert danger! danger! not-like no no not-here go away that bad bad no! _chase them out of the gully as if they had brought an eel, whole mouthfuls of eels to spit into the nests of the dragons here.

Some scatter, hiding beneath their flock-mates' wings and shadows. Some roar and stomp and glare, yowling _disgust _to drown out the _fear _cowering in their bellies. Bitter draws away with her cheeks blown out wide, smoke trickling from her jaws, ready to hide herself within it.

Hiccup shrieks in reply _scolding_, whistling derisive _you scared why? small no-threat us sure yes certain-sure very-much-so no-threat you never-mind don't-want don't-care_, the insulted whistles of a dragon turning his back. And he does so, setting his shoulders _sulking _and crouching low to Toothless' scales.

He splays his paws open across his other half's shoulders, feeling offended rumbles roll and powerful muscles move as Toothless keeps them in a hover despite the roaring winds that claw their way across the high headlands of this island, far above the sea. He does not know if it is the wind that tore gashes into the land, or a dragon, or something else entirely. He does not imagine he knows _everything_.

Not all the time, anyway.

_Again? _Toothless invites, snorting _dismissal _down towards the stirred-up nest. _Good yes you them I wait not-worried ready easy_, he indicates, whistling _mockery _and a single mimicked _krawwww! _of a raven soaring away from a dragon's kill, fresh meat clenched tight in its talons.

Ravens are not good to eat. They are clever, and they will mob dragons even bigger than Toothless, if there is something to eat and enough of them, and there are _always _more ravens than even sharp-eyed dragons like _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _can see.

They have followed ravens to prey before, when they raced the winter home and lost. Snow fell like rocks, only a breath behind the scent of it, and covered what seemed like all the world. Unable to fly further, Toothless had huddled in a dug-out snow cave with Hiccup cowering under his belly, the wild little boy shivering so hard Toothless had eyed the snow above them with concern and his partner-beloved more so. He had fed his Hiccup-self on the last shreds of fish he could cough up from the very bottom of his empty-already stomach, and the black dragon had laid very stubbornly on the hunger until he was not sure if he could rise again.

Raven calls had led them to a running-beast dead and frozen beneath the snow, its horns broken, but ice is nothing to dragons with fire inside. Starving as he was, Toothless had kept his jaws in the prey-beast's belly, and let the scavenging ravens tear thawed pieces away as they would. Even when they hopped _very _close and Hiccup tried to grab a feather from one, and was pecked at for his curiosity, Toothless had not snapped.

Hiccup licks at the old scar, reminded, and snorts _can't-be-bothered_, turning a shoulder to the nest hidden away at the bottom of a deep gorge. No seawater rushes up into it, and it cannot be seen from the ocean. For humans to come here, they would have to climb up high, sharp cliffs, past the seabirds there and the thorns, and no _pfikingr _hunter could do so silently. The flock would hear the intruders; they would burn them from the stone and send them howling to the crush of the water below. So the dragons that live here now have made the gorge their own, digging and burning and gathering together nests, each as they prefer.

It is a safe place for dragons, but only ones that live.

As Toothless veers away, angling into the familiar winds, Hiccup turns to run a sorrowful paw across the tight-wrapped bundle riding along, tucked into the flying-with along with him. It is not a strange thing, for Toothless to fly with another small rider on his back. Every new clutch of hatchlings who see _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _take off into the air and soar, and land very prettily with their heads high on the very tiniest spot in between the swarming babies, clamors to have a turn. Crystal Finder is always bringing her new little ones to them, when she is tired of their games.

But hatchlings scream _delight _and wiggle _wonder_, and cry _look-at-me _as _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _glide over their clutch-mates. They peer over Toothless' wings and coo _longing _as the ground of the nest falls away, and yelp _alarm _as they slip and fall. Hatchlings shriek _laughter _as the black dragon swoops and dives and catches them again in paws or jaws. Hiccup can snatch a hatchling from the air and never miss as Toothless rolls beside and beneath the plummeting baby, and hold it close as they dart away again.

This – the dragon that is, but is not – is silent, still, warm only with the sun on it, and little enough of that. A dead thing – but Hiccup does not like to think of it so. It traces cold ice down his spine like a snake slithering over his forepaw as Snow On Her Tongue whistles _danger!_

Head lowered, he glances and whines _apology _back at the ruffled flock in their gorge den. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _understand, because it was once Like Them, and so it is theirs. The flock here does not. To them, it is only a _strange wrong thing_, something to be feared and chased away.

This is not the place it belongs.

_Sorry_, he tells the bundle silently, poking his nose towards it _comfort_, as if to nuzzle it. He crooks his soft-claws to scratch its scales as he would the soft place beneath Toothless' jaw.

Listening, Toothless croons _no-sad Hiccup-beloved-mine not-worried good yes hopeful_, and gestures with his own broad nose _go on!_ The gesture touches only air, but the dragon-feral feels it against his side anyway. He grunts _acknowledgement _as he has done so many times, when he has missed some pounce and Toothless-_love_ has pushed him to try again.

Not this place.

They brought dragons here to stay once. They may do so again.

But not this dragon.

The wind subsides, drawing in its breath to roar again, and Toothless dives while he can. An easy glide and a sharp pounce, and they settle to one of the high, dry clifftop plains overlooking the ocean all the way out to a far horizon. They stay well away from the tangled-together thorns that guard this island's edges and its hollows.

_Searching_, Toothless says to that horizon, a low cry. But he shakes his head and snorts, scuffing away this first failure, and bugles _here-I-come!_ bright and clear and challenging, as if this were the hiding-game that all dragons play.

Hiccup leaps from his shoulders, crouching easily by his side, and murmurs _consideration_, a soft rambling sound like leaping from thought to thought and back again, but becoming very distracted along the way by some shiny bit of shell or interesting flower.

_Is not!_ he says finally, a gentle denial. When Toothless glances at him, the black dragon slipping down to lie against the warm, close-trodden and close-chewed grass – there are rabbits in the thorns – Hiccup gestures, _us here dragon me you that-there go look-find_, casting about on the ground as if searching for something lost. He trails off, working through it.

_Huh_, he says at last, a short breath, and rolls over, baring his stomach and throat to Toothless' jaws in submission and perfect trust. _You win_.

It is like the hiding-game. They are searching for a hiding place that no pursuer will ever find.

The black dragon raises his head and hoods his eyes _smug_. _Me win yes yes yes pleased proud clever-me_, he grunts, and Hiccup thumps one closed-tight paw against his shoulder.

Toothless licks him messily for breaking his surrender, and Hiccup squeals and leaps away. He is as fast on all his paws as any dragon, and moves as easily, accustomed to rough ground and ragged caves and the vast, wild world he and Toothless wander.

Soon enough, he is back, joining Toothless in a long stretch that maybe looks better on black dragon than on dragon-feral. Hiccup does not know this, nor would he mind: it feels good. He presses his face to Toothless' scales, humming their own sounds just for them, _you me we us_, and draws the dark-scaled bundle from its straps, petting it _hello you here me big gentle friendly no-fear safe_ as if waking a hatchling from a nap.

With their strange thing set aside, Toothless can roll, and does, paws batting at the sky as if to grab the clouds. He shakes dust from his scales when he rises, and Hiccup brushes the last clinging bits of broken grass away until his beloved Toothless-half is glossy and dark again.

The long evening is far away, the sun still high, but Toothless paws at the ground, digging out a shallow pit, just something to set his side against. Hiccup scavenges without much expectation; they are high and far from the shore where most things he can eat can be found.

Hiccup has survived all his life on a dragon's diet: fish and shellfish, birds' eggs and dark meats nipped still-steaming from beneath the jaws of bigger dragons, all raw unless the quarrel for the food has come to flames. Nuts are good to eat, but there are no trees here. The wind has blown them all away. The thorns bristle _stay out! _very fiercely, and Hiccup does not feel like arguing with them for any berries that might be hidden within. There are some mushrooms he can eat, but he has been slapped away from too many by a dragon's heavy paw to look at mushrooms kindly.

Sometimes he does not eat. Hiccup accepts this as he accepts rain, cold, bruises, bee-stings, falls, sharp stones that tear his paws, snow, and all the everyday hazards of his wild existence. Even with Toothless at his side, sometimes he sleeps hungry. Sometimes they both do. And so he is rangy rather than merely slim, the bones of his face perhaps too sharply defined beneath his wild shock of auburn hair. In the earlier days of the summer, all his weight is muscle, and he is stronger than he appears.

Had he been offered all the food in the world, still he would have chosen no other life. He has Toothless who is his heart beside him, and the sky.

A slim shadow falls over him as he searches, and Hiccup glances up without fear.

The young fire-skin cousin who lands on the headland beside him is familiar, the pattern of her purple blotches sharper now with more scales to spread across, but distinctive. Her claws fit her more neatly now, and her golden eyes blink _welcome _at them both.

Lowering her jaw to the ground, she spills uneaten fish from it, nudging them towards the dragon-pair, signaling _I share! Good good hunter me see good fish I catch this you you good here! _Her long muzzle is filled with fangs, jutting out around her jaw, but they are bared in a dragon's smile, her tongue flashing, rather than a snarl.

_Here! _she squeals, darting around the fish to nudge Hiccup with the horn on her nose. _You here! good good good happy-you-here see me? yes me? yes?_

Hiccup scratches at her nose affectionately as Toothless purrs greetings; they know her. _You here yes certain-sure? _he asks, and _whuff_s laughter as she glares.

She flew away from this island when she was smaller – she is as big as Toothless now, one day she will be bigger – and got very lost indeed, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ brought her home.

_Not funny_, snorts the young dragon Hiccup thought of then as Ringleader, putting her nose in the air. _No fish you, _she scratches and glares, but her eyes gleam _amusement_. He is only teasing, and she knows that.

_I here good good determined certain-sure good_, she asserts, puffing out her chest and rearing her head high. Toothless blows a soft _fwip!_ of fire at her, and at once her blazing skin crackles alight. She spreads out her wings in a bright, delighted display, and closes them again with such a gust it blows the fire out.

_See?_ Ringleader boasts, tail waving, and preens as Hiccup and Toothless whistle approval and admiration from a safe distance. _You here! _she says again, sidling towards Hiccup again. She cocks her head _curiosity_, whistles _Why?_

_Wondering? _Toothless chirrs, glancing past her towards the gorge den. _Listen there they unhappy us here listen them_.

The young fire-skin turns to look, listening to the sounds of aggrieved dragons, her flock-mates and friends, still drifting like blown-away leaves on the wind. And she snorts _disdain_.

_You good,_ she says firmly. _Here yes why?_

Hiccup blinks _gratitude _and _affection _at her, ducking his shoulders in a way that makes her tongue flash in a gaping smile, that he should crouch so to her. _You brave_, he signals, _yes?_

Ringleader sets her shoulders and snorts _better-believe-it!_ as if a much, much bigger dragon was doubting her.

_C'mere_, Hiccup gestures to her, and she creeps closer to Toothless' side and the dark bundle there. _This_, he signs, and she turns her head on one side to look closely.

He can see the moment she realizes what it is; her eye flicks to Toothless and back again, and a shudder runs all the way down to the end of her tail. She draws back, taking a tiny step away before remembering herself, and setting her claws into the earth.

_Wrong no no strange fear don't-like stay-away wrong thing that ugh! _all her signals say, but she shakes her head, glancing to the older dragon-pairs for reassurance as if she were still a hatchling small enough to hold. When she sees no fear in them, she looks again.

_You_, she says to Toothless, all her signals _confusion_.

Toothless mewls _regret _and _grief_, and nuzzles it.

Ringleader hesitates another moment, then lowers her head to the earth. She hesitates, bracing herself _brave me look certain-sure! _even though her eyes betray _not-sure-at-all_,and nudges the bundle with the very tip of her nose. When it does not snap at her, she croons to it, a long low sound of _sad!_

Hiccup scratches beneath her jaw, praising her bravery and her heart. She was silly and small and fierce before, but she had protected the friends she led into danger, and he is pleased to see that good heart again. She is Ringleader still, but one who might lead others boldly.

_Hiding-game! _he whistles, gesturing to the silent bundle, and off to the horizon, and together they tell their young friend about searching for a hiding place where the poor dead dragon that they cannot burn and set free will be safe, will always be safe, where no _pfikingr-_enemy will find it, no predators will tear at it, no sand will bury it.

She listens with her head on one side, and then on the other, and then back again, and when they have told her all of it, she gurgles _laughter_.

_Hey! _Hiccup whistles sharply, sitting up and baring his teeth in a snarl. It is _like _a game, but it is _not! _It is _wrong _to laugh at the dead! He is smaller than her, but he will swat her very fiercely and think of her only with disdain, dismissing her always as only silly after all.

_Sorry_, she cringes, signaling _no-fight_. _You_, she pokes her nose at Toothless, who has extended one wing over the bundle protectively, guarding now but ready to leap.

_You mother_, she says, _you both, _and burbles _glee_.

Hiccup draws back into a crouch, one paw raised, soft-claws crooked to strike although his true claws are untouched. He would have swatted her in rebuke, but he will not slash at a friend to draw blood and leave scars, not for an insult he might have misunderstood or the fledgling might not have meant to offer.

He looks. Toothless _does _look like a mother, hovering in her nest over a single egg that is hers and like her, to be kept safe always, somewhere nothing will ever harm it. This egg will never hatch. Sometimes eggs do not, and they are mourned. No little dragon will ever burst from it and spread new wings. It will never be able to fly away and defend itself.

But it is like that, what they are doing.

_Maybe so_, Hiccup admits, flashing his tongue in a smile at her where Toothless cannot see, and the black dragon knocks him over with a quick _smack!_ of his tail anyway.

* * *

…_she is –_

_Oh, she is _hurting._ A very great rock has fallen on her skull._

_She has a skull, she remembers, and she tries to paw at it, but her paws – _

…_she has paws – will not move. She should know where they are, she thinks. They are –_

_One paw moves very slowly, reaching for her nose where something weighs it down, but dragon jaws grip tight around her foreleg, and she does not have the strength to fight. She wants to curl up and hide herself beneath her wings and feel better._

_But she must get up. There must be _very _bad air here. She must be deepbelow where even _she _knows not to go. Deepbelow, dragons can only gasp against the empty dark and trudge back to the rich bright colors of the real world with shudders in their bodies, and then avoid those places forevermore._

_She must wake, or she will die._

_She will be snarled at and pushed away for her foolishness, but she must rise._

_Swallowing down a whimper – [redgoldgreen] will tread on her tail and sneer at her if he hears her cry – she fights to bring all her paws beneath her. But still they move only a little way._

Let go! _she growls, turning her head blindly to bare her fangs at the dragons biting her. It is not funny, to keep her here! Even her eyelids are heavy, though there is no yawn in her throat._

_The darkness swirls around her, tumbling her down down down, and she puts her nose to the ground. Something blunts the touch of the rocks against her nose, and the smells of her own breath and strange fires and something she does not know roll over her tongue._

_She tastes it for bad air, frightened. All dragons know bad air._

_There is none – even through the hurting, she would know: she was taught the smell of bad air as a hatchling just like every other little dragon. She flicks her earflaps – she has earflaps! – down in apology and submission._

Sorry! _she whimpers at last. They have won, the biting ones, they can let her _go _now! They must know that no one will come to her defense. There are no strangers in the world. _Me sorry bad me sorry small sorry me bad yes resignation sorry_, she mewls and signals._

_She has lost herself in some corner where no one should go – again! – and she is very bad, she is _very bad _already. She has learned and will sit for her scolding –_

_(She _never _learns and sits for her scolding, and so she walks the edges.)_

_When her flock-mates do not release her, she cries out _Let go! _hearing _panic _in her own voice._

_A soft touch brushes across her skull, pressing just where the coal is brightest, as if to snuff it out, and she sighs _relief_. She still cannot raise her paws, but she can lean into the warmth at her side, bracing against her shoulder and petting beneath her jaw and resting over her eyes. It dabs touches against the lines of her shoulder and the edges of her wings – _

_She has wings! The very tips of them are cold, and she folds them in against her spine more tightly._

_Sagging into the ground that feels strange beneath her belly, she turns towards the comfort. They hum to her, this dragon she does not know._

_That is…_

_Why does she not know them?_

_Something cold touches against her flanks, and she shudders until warm touches rest against those cold points, soothing. But when the nose or paw or tongue moves away, there is still a strange weight there._

_Someone – she still does not know the voice – murmurs _reassurance _to her, and she raises her head blindly to be caressed. Her nose is too heavy._

_And oh, the voice is so _strange…_she has never heard any_thing like it…

Edge opens her eyes.

There is darkness all around her, but a strange wrong darkness that flickers without a bright glow anywhere, not a stone to be seen anywhere, and there is –

_Thereisacreaturetouchingher!_

The little white dragon leaps away in terror that strikes her like a blast of flame, heart pounding louder than her skull, a strangled scream tearing its way from her throat, and crashes down to a ground that is all _wrong!_

The creature makes a sound she has never heard before, but some instinct coils down her spine and tells her it is laughter. It reaches out with a paw that fixes onto her ear-flap and holds stronger than teeth, pulling her down and against its body again, and she scrabbles to escape, tail lashing –

Even her tail is held still, and she stares frantically at the things like vines but hard as stone wrapped around her forepaws, fixed into the ground. Her hindlegs are trapped just the same when she rolls a panicked eye back to see, and her tail as well. They shine dully in the light from the little fires held captive beyond her reach, before the tree branches that also shine.

Edge has seen trees; she is _very _brave.

But she does not feel very brave – even Patch would not be brave with his paws held down and his tail trapped and his wings held tight to each other and a _creature _touching him!

The creature makes more sounds, patting her side and shoulder with its other forepaw fearlessly. There is no fear in it at _all, _even though it is much smaller even than she. It pulls her ear-flap and presses its claws into the point where her shoulder meets back, _chrrk_s over the scar beneath her foreleg that she crouches over, ashamed of it even now. She should not have challenged Patch that time when there was an interesting new fish, but he should not have struck her!

Terrified, humiliated, she pulls away as far as she can and hears the stone vines rattle. She hates the sound already. She will bite them!

But her jaw is held shut, something else binding it, and she can only shake her head and strike her nose against the things.

The creature makes stern noises at her, unfolding itself – oh, it is a long creature! – to follow her. It stays in the hollow of her side where she cannot strike at it, not trapped as she is, and she cries out _no no you no back-away no not-like not-want you back-away now-now-now!_

Beneath the strange scent of the thing on her nose and the dizzying spin of painful sleep, she catches a whiff of scent and struggles to remember it. She has smelled this creature somewhere. She…

She flew to look at something, something new and different, wild with the excitement of seeing so many new things, seeing them _first_. She does not remember what it was now. All her thoughts are scrambled and smashed like mushrooms that have been run through by a chasing game. And things like teeth flew to meet her, up from…

Oh, the thing on the sea! She had dived at other such floating things before, and darted away preening very boldly.

And she had faded away to shadows, and –

A pain half-remembered and half-real bites at her folded wing, and Edge flinches, remembering the shock. She has fought with others like her, quarreling over food when they will eat it all or when she tries to perch among flock-mates that do not want her there, but to be _attacked _so –!

She had lost her fade with the absolute shock of it, and fallen.

Now the creature sets its paws to the thin scales there, looking at the wound, and she struggles to pull her wing away. It will bite her again!

She will bite _it _again, too – she remembers the dead taste of this creature, now. She will bite it better next time! She will bite it right in two! She will bite it very very _very _soon, if she can only break away –

Edge writhes, and she fights, and she strikes not a single blow. The creature murmurs to itself, and maybe to her – she is not listening! – and strokes like a presuming, _rude _nose across her narrow back and thin sides and the folds of her wings. It inspects her as if she were that fine new fish, crooning _delight _and ignoring every muffled cry.

She has always been on the edge of things, but there are no things here, only nightmares.

* * *

The island of the gorges is long behind them, and now dragon and dragon-feral slink through shadows tentatively, cautiously, ready always to leap and fly. This is a place they know, but one that they will never like. Dread breathes from the edges of the ocean in the _shush _of the waves, and hovers over them like gaping, bloodstained jaws that fill the sky.

It is a wrong place. No dragon will come here, and so – though it is strange – _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _have.

Hiccup sets his paws to the ground, the warmth of it bleeding through his dragon-clawed gauntlets, and he shudders at its touch as if it were coldest ice. Growling a warning, he digs his claws into it, marking it, and glances sideways at the high mountainside looming over them both. Cave-mouths gape emptily, scattered across its side, hidden in the shadows of crags and corners between stones. No roar or scream descends upon them from the sky to challenge them and chase them away, but still he keeps his body low and his claws ready, watching the sky between each step. Fear chews on him, gnawing its way into his belly like a rat, creeping and unwelcome.

Beside him, Toothless rumbles _don't-like, _fangs bared, and _need-you, _quiet for his Hiccup-self alone to hear. His ear-flaps twitch as he tries to listen very alertly to the waves and the wind that are the only sounds, but instinct pins them back close against his skull. An enemy may pounce on them and bite.

The lost one is silent, and Hiccup cannot look at it. It is a puzzle, to guard an egg that will never wake, that cannot be broken in despair and blown away to the wind in fire. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _cannot dig out a nest for it, to curl up in and wait very patiently, hunting for each other and trusting the egg to each other in turns. But they cannot leave it alone.

Even the very highest cliffs are not safe. Sea slime and moss would creep over it, and gulls would try to scratch nests in it, and Hiccup had scuffed at the leavings of birds in the high perch with every signal saying _revulsion_, nose wrinkled against the acrid stink.

They had chased the wind and flown nowhere in particular, Toothless gliding from rising current to downdraft, steady river to wild gusts, throwing himself into tailspins with his eyes closed and following his nose wherever it happened to point him, trusting the sky to guide him to where they needed to be. And as they flew, Hiccup had watched the ocean roll away below.

He knew it was all water – what else would it be? – but they had been far from land, and the ocean must be very deep there. This is a simple thing to know: he has played and hunted along shorelines all his life. He has splashed into the growling surf and chased crabs through it, darting his claws past theirs. He has swum with the tide beating in his bones, peering at the sand beneath him for prey and out into the deeper dark for the wonder of it. He has felt the drowned land fall away beneath his small self, and turned at once for shallower waters. Beneath the ocean is a place he and Toothless can never go.

And so it was not a place for a Lost One Like Them – they do not belong, so it does not belong, either. It must be dark and cold and strange, to be lost beneath the ocean.

There is a seawater cave in the depths of their home nest where the dragon-pair do not swim. None of their flock-mates do. There are angry scars carved deep into its stones before the water's edge where dragons once tore at it, pleading with it to return one of their own. The seawater cave had taken that one, and eaten them, and never even returned them drowned and still. There are warning scent-marks thick in the air of that cave, just as dragons may mark a biting trap they have found, and when _very _reckless young explorers trespass beyond even those, there is their Alpha's forbiddance to catch them and turn them back to safer caves again.

And there are hunters beneath the ocean, too.

The ocean hisses against the shore of the abandoned island volcano, and Hiccup turns on it, hissing back. He scuffs at the sand and the brackish water caught in it, quick-melting snow and sea spray fouled by the dead thing on the far shore and the flotsam that washes up on any beach. If there were dragons here, anything that came to shore would be pounced on and tumbled with and batted across the shoreline until it could be eaten, or it ceased to be of any interest at all.

There are no dragons here.

Hiccup and Toothless have carried hatchlings and eggs away from this broken nest, amidst the fires of battle and in the quiet of the new spring when they found one lost mother left behind, and it is strange now that they bring one like an egg to it. But the monster that once ruled as a savage queen here is dead. Her vast body is still frozen beneath their king's wrath, and she will eat no more of her own kind. The sea will eat her.

_Hiccup-beloved-mine? _Toothless calls out, retreating a few steps. He rears up, glancing around for the danger they can both feel prickling down their spines, and drops into a cautious crouch. _You you what what there you look what threat? threat? I fight!_

Snorting, Hiccup shakes reeking sand from his claws and turns his face up to Toothless. _Fine, _he signals. _No-threat_, he says of the ocean, and turns away from the waves. Toothless licks at his fur, grooming nervously, and Hiccup sets his claws against his dragon-self's chest, preferring the warmth of his partner's heart-fires to the deceptive warmth beneath the earth.

_Strange here not-like wary watching hurry-hurry not-welcome us here no not-want_, Hiccup postures and whines, but he sets his shoulders _resolute_ as well. Shaking away the creeping dread that hovers over them both like the long-vanished thick mists, he grunts _determination_ and looks up to the mountainside.

_Yes we go good yes us together safe no-fear guard we guard no-threat certain-sure very-much-so! _the dragon-feral declares, shoving away the cringe that wants to smash him to the earth beneath its weight. But there is a question in his eyes – _you you fine yes this ready want still sure?_

Toothless paws at the gritty, warm sand, watching the mountain and the empty tunnels from the side of his eyes. _Confident-sure,_ he signals, raising his jaw _challenge_. The scales over his throat are unmarked, unscarred, bright and clean and defiant. No enemy has _ever _pinned him down and struck to kill, pulling its blow only enough to let him flee defeated and humiliated.

He will not flee an enemy that is dead already, that they know is dead, that they have seen being very dead there. The mouths of empty tunnels have no teeth.

Hiccup leaps to his back with practiced ease and only a tap to the bundle of Lost One to be sure it has not woken. It is _very _strange to have a dragon-cousin beside them, gone and yet still here. And at once Toothless spreads his wings and leaps, quick now that they have decided. He stays close to the mountainside, springing from sharp-edged broken stone to shorn-away cliff face to an outcropping scarred with the marks of many dragon claws. As the cave-mouth gapes open before him, he leaps back from it and hovers, dancing away from a sudden attack that does not come.

_Here-I-am! _he shrieks, a challenge and a warning. _I here look-at-me here I trespasser-alert stranger-dragon here bold me bad bad bad come-find-me!_

No outraged roar of a dragon defending its nest greets him. No fire blazes from the tunnel. No one screams _danger! _to flock-mates hidden within.

Carefully, cautiously, Toothless returns to the tunnel. He shudders at the stink of it. Deep within, they know that there is a sullen ever-burning mountain fire, where the eater had laired. But its sharp scent is not enough to cover the miasma of death and blood and fear that has leached into the walls, all that remains of the many dragons who lived and cowered and died here. He can still smell the heavy musk of the eater, stale now, and the faint trace of lingering scent-marks.

No dragon would enter this tunnel.

With Hiccup on his shoulders to steady him, and the soft weight of the Lost One cool against his scales, Toothless does.

Every step is a reluctant one. Every breath drags blunt claws along his spine, threatening before a strike he cannot anticipate. His paws know the way, but his heart recoils.

This is a sick place, a bad place, a wrong place, but Toothless understands that fear can be sharper than fangs. He and his Hiccup-self cannot crouch over their Lost One always. They have horizons to chase and toys to steal and new places to explore. They have flock-mates to play with, and new hatchlings to be kin-cousins to, and faraway friends to perch with. They have dragon-cousins to lead to new places with enough prey and nests for them all. They have their own small nest to defend from encroaching paws, even when the dragon those paws belong to could not fit into their hollow even if he squashed himself up very small. That is a favorite game of Pushy Pushy's now that he is big; he was smaller than Toothless once, when they were all very small.

They have _pfikingr _to stare at so that they will always remember to be friends to dragons now. They have new scents to follow through the wind like pacing very carefully behind a scuttling bug. They have pawprints to trace through fresh snow until they make a shape. They still have not caught the sun.

They must hide the Lost One very cleverly so that they can go and do all of these things, and no predator would look for it here. Fear and the stink of _wrongness _will stand over the Lost One and snarl at the world always. The broken nest will bare its fangs, and never tire.

Rumbling _caution_, hearing Hiccup echo it back to him, watchful and muted, Toothless forces himself on. He takes light steps, keeping his wings half-spread even in the confines of the tunnel, and he follows the faint glow from the fire in the corrupted heart of the nest.

Hiccup chatters to him as he creeps ahead, a hopeful litany of comfort and reassurance. _You me we us together yes always certain-sure us Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss good brave love-you love very-much-so together us love-you happy safe here look sky sun warm good us together Toothless-heart-mine always… _and Toothless musters up a purr of his own, knowing his other half is just as frightened, just as determined.

They have each other, and that gives them strength enough to return even into nightmares.

Before long, the tunnel opens onto a vast cavern, wide enough for many dragons to fly through in a swarming flock, and the stone falls away before Toothless' paws. Empty tunnels stare back at the dragon-pair like so many eyes, broken stone-teeth crumbling away as if they were icicles melted by the heat, deserted ledges and wide pathways stark and bare. Below, fire more intense than any dragon's flows slowly through deep cracks in the stone, all the way down into the heart-fire of the world. It is a dark fire, pulsing and brooding, as if blood might burn. Steam wafts through the pit, but less than there was when the eater lurked and devoured her own.

But far away, at the other end of the pit, there is the gleam of sunlight sparkling away from the king's ice, frozen still despite the summers and the warm ground. His ice is powerful enough to break stone, and their Alpha had torn into the mountain to drag the eater from her lair and slay her in the light.

They have seen the eater dead, but they did not want to approach her again. She too is a strange thing, dead but not gone, but one they are _glad _they can see. If they can see her dead, she has not gotten up again. And so _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _chose instead to sneak around her, through the unbroken flank of the nest.

Toothless spreads his wings _triumph _and _relief_, remembering their victory, knowing that from here he could dive and fly very quickly, soaring for the sun.

_Not-here! _Hiccup shrieks, twisting the disappointed sound of a dragon who cannot find her prey into something spiteful and pleased. The empty caves shriek his delight back to him.

A faint breeze wends its way into the depths of the cavern, and Toothless shakes himself all over with a bit of a wiggle. The fresh air pleases him, and Hiccup's quick yelp of laughter at being shaken even more so. _C'mon,_ he signals, _eagerness _leavened by _apprehension,_ flicking his nose at the many tunnels to explore. There must be many hiding places here. The eater's flock must have hidden from her, although it still sends Toothless spinning to think of it.

He launches them both out over the pit, steam billowing out around him. He clicks _mockery _with every wingbeat, and no great jaws rise from the smoke to punish him.

For a time, they explore, creeping into abandoned caves and tracing nose and paws across the scars of small dragon-claws etched into the stone. They find corners where many dragons have shed scales, hiding their scraps of themselves like secrets. They find old prey-bones concealed and buried beneath tumbled rocks. They find a steam-vent so powerful that droplets of water collect on the stones of the cave, which have been licked smooth by the tongues of the departed flock. They find hollows far from the pit where dragons once slept, their scents faded now, but trodden into the stone.

All of it reeks of a fear so choking, time and again Hiccup or Toothless or both must stop on some threshold, unable to go further, and flee back to the chance of a breeze.

_Uncertainty_, Hiccup cries at last, draped limply over a stone at the edge of the pit. He can just see the sunlight from here, even though he must roll very sideways and brace all his paws against a stone tooth. He recoils _revulsion_, whimpers _pity_, grimaces _wrong wrong wrong wrong_.

Toothless sighs _regret _and drops his belly to the ground, shuffling forward until Hiccup's paws are braced on his side instead of stone. That is better. But nothing about this place is good.

_Unsure_, he grumbles. He slaps his tailfins against a warm stone, _anger _and _frustration._ _Where? _the black dragon cries out, a searching sound. _Nest here bad bad bad sad me sad this all-of-this yes certain-sure – not-like! _He whines, low in his throat, and twists to tap his nose against the Lost One.

He cannot quite reach; he is not a fire-skin cousin or a two-heads cousin or a leaf-tail cousin with a very long neck. But this is no good place to leap and spin and try harder. Hiccup will not laugh – he is staring down into the pit very intently – and why would Toothless spin, if not to make his Hiccup-self laugh?

_Lost-egg sad_, Toothless reasons, using the grieving sound for an egg that even its mother must admit will never hatch. _Sad lost egg sad regret grieving hurt_ _here sad yes sad. Yes?_

Surely sad things should go together. He can understand that dragons go together, and _pfikingr_ go together, and prey-beasts always run in their own herds and not all mixed. Flock-mates who like each other avoid flock-mates they do not like, and those dragons flock together to snarl back at their shared rivals across the cave until they leap to fight, or until someone roars them all out into the sky.

Some of their flock-mates play at sorting through fish, when fishing has been very good. They will make great hoards of every fish they can scoop from the sea, and burrow through them searching only for fish with green-shimmering spots, or fish that taste like _that_. Toothless likes to watch Dawn Hunter and Long Yawn and Torn Paw and Likes Crabs play this game, and not only because if they have so many fish, surely they will not miss just two.

Toothless puzzles over this while a welcome breath of fresh air wends through the caves, blowing the steam away. And he feels Hiccup's paws against his side tense with _horror_.

The black dragon leaps to his feet at once, heart racing, whistling _alarm_. Fire boils in his throat behind his bared fangs, even as he catches a claw in a trailing edge of Hiccup's scale-skins, keeping his partner-self from tumbling into the pit.

Hiccup scrambles back to safer ground with the speed of true terror, eyes wide, shrieking _no no no no_ breathlessly, only a gasp. He backs up into Toothless with his claws raised in defense, turning his head away, but with his eyes fixed on the pit below.

_No no no no no_, he wails, and moans _despair_.

The steam is not thick enough to hide an eater, but it had been enough to hide the eaten.

Dragon bones litter the ground of the pit, scattered and broken but all too familiar; they have seen those shapes in their friends and flock-kin, all their lives. Gape-jawed skulls scream silently, staring up at the dragon-pair from vacant eye-sockets. Far-flung claws reach out, helpless and scattered, pieces thrown from one side of the pit to the other. The monster who laired here had died with dragon bones in her jaws, but she had left plenty of her dead behind to rot unburnt, beyond the reach of their terrified kin.

_No!_ Hiccup declares, fervent and absolute, as Toothless realizes all this and whimpers matching _horror_. The black dragon cringes all the way down to the ground, pulling Hiccup back against his side and away from the staring dead. He wraps one forepaw over his own tight-shut eyes, and feels his Hiccup-_beloved_ bury his face beneath one ear-flap for a moment.

With a snarl, _rage_ deep and powerful, Hiccup sits up again and clenches his forepaws, claws scratching against the leather.

_This – _he signals, glancing at the Lost One, _this ours yes us protect yes. _He signals _mother_, not the _pfikingr _sound _mama _but the deferential sound that dragons use, and whistle-clicks _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, modulated a wavering _sort-of_.

_Egg here no-never go us go us catch yes good-good-good us was-so? was-so? _He lifts his head _proud _for the ones they protected, andcries _hatred _of the monster that would have eaten even eggs and hatchlings if she could. She would have broken them under her feet, killed them for nothing more than _spite_.

_Lost-egg ours yes claim ours protect_, he signals, and _egg here no never certain-sure!_

They could have left the Lost One Like Them in an empty nest, perhaps, if it was a place where no hunter would ever find it. But not among the dead who still scream _pain_.

They would not leave an egg here, even one that would not hatch. Perhaps – Hiccup has never thought of it before, because he did not need to – perhaps one of the eggs they and their flock-mates took from here, while the eater fought for her life, was an egg that would never hatch.

They would not have left it here, even then.

The Lost One is _like _an egg, and they are _like _mothers, searching for a safe place for it. And no dragon-mother would make her nest here – there was one that did, but she did not understand that she was free. When she did, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _had led her and borne her unhatched eggs to a safer place.

This is no place for one Like Them. It is gone, and it will not know, but _they _will know. They would hear it calling to them, begging them not to leave it alone in a place of nightmares.

They do not have to be mothers for real to know that.

Toothless sneaks another peek over the edge and shudders. _No, _he agrees, and whistles emphasis, _very-much-so!_

They leave the eater's nest to the dead, crooning _grief _and _comfort _and _together _to each other, _mine safe love-you brave yes me love you me we us._

The Lost One goes with them.

* * *

She has always been on the edge of things, but she has never been so lonely.

There have always been dragons around her, familiar and known. Edge has chafed at them, sometimes, as she hid down strange tunnels and crept daringly towards the gap in the sky no good dragon would go near. They have pushed her away for being small and without a single mark of her own, but they were always there.

She is no good dragon, she knows, but she wants her flock-mates back more than anything. They may jeer at her, if it pleases them. It will please her too, to hear their voices.

The darkness is all wrong. Edge has lived all her life in a realm of bright colors and soft glows, flock-mates that signal to each other in color and fade to match the luminous fields and cave gorges they roam through, shimmering spores kicked up to float away in the wake of downbeat wings. She has snapped those spores from the air and held them on her tongue, breathing in the bright scent of them. She has dived from the roof of the world to glide above stones that light up beneath her, and seen glowing footprints blaze to life as she runs across them. Her darkness is a thing of corners and hidden places, a chosen darkness. Her darkness holds light.

Here there are flares of small thin fires, too-bright glare in thin cracks above her like shattering stone, the creaking uncertainty of a cave that is not a cave, the smell of saltwater caked strongly in the air. There is the feeling of motion like a rock that slides beneath her paws and will not stop sliding, and that she cannot leave. She can only cling to it and fall.

Edge thought she smelled dragons once, but she did not know their scent. It was sharp and dangerous, heavy with rage. Their scents made her bristle and crouch, longing to spread her wings and fly, too frightened to scent-flare to them in answer or plea. There is nothing like them – if they were dragons at all, and it was not some creature-trick – in the real world.

She never meant to fly this far…

She had only wanted to see where water came from, because it was a thing no one knew or cared about, and things no one cares about have always been hers, left over. And Fadeout had been _lying _when she said that bright-blazing on-off light would burn her scales, and pushed her into it!

It had been so _warm_ when she stumbled into it, all her resistance gone at once. Sea-spray and startled fish had cascaded over the rocks, plummeting around her with a roar like the biggest dragon she could ever imagine, and light had poured down along with them. There had been so much _height _there, higher than even the most soaring cavern!

She had turned her face upward and shuttered her eyes against it without fear even as her cousins cringed or jeered, and pranced back into their midst very proudly. While her scales were warm, they'd pressed close to her and crooned _amazement_, even if they tucked their tails low when Edge snorted and tossed her head and dared Fadeout to follow her.

For a moment, she had belonged Among the flock, not at the Edge.

Edge puts her bound nose to her trapped paws, and howls _longing _and _regret_.

Something rattles beyond, and Edge's cries turn to a hissing snarl of _rage hate bad bad bad things here go-away you I bite yes warning-now go-away!_

The two creatures that step into the not-cave ignore her, and Edge glares her most fearsome glare. These creatures that walk all upright and have no wings, that grab and bind and seal her away, that jabber with their loud tangled voices out of their flat soft faces, that have fur like the prey she learned to hunt as she explored this strange new lightdark world above – she knows them now. She will bite them _all_.

There is a smell of fish from the holding-thing one of them, red-furred and smaller, holds. Edge does not care at all. Fish are scattered all over her prison where she slapped them, straining against her bonds to claw them into reach. She stomped them flat and snarled _serve-you-right! _when they squashed messily. She tore her claws through bellies and ripped out blank-staring fish eyes. She strewed their scales everywhere and left the meat uneaten. She spilled the hollow of drinking-water out across the ground, too, and now pieces of fish slosh as the whole terrible world sways.

There is some give in the thing wrapped around her nose, binding her jaw, but she keeps her mouth shut tight, not even licking at the scraps of meat caught beneath her paws. Her stomach is grumbling, dizziness still eating its way through her, but she does not care.

The fish are new and different, but that does not matter. New fish are swept into the real world all the time. They are eaten, or they escape into the deep waters, and they make more fish to be eaten. Edge will eat almost anything, if it stays still long enough to be eaten, or if it can be _made _to stay still, and it does not make her sick.

She found many new good things to eat, as she explored, and it was _all hers _with no one to eat the best bits and leave her only scraps!

She will not be fed like a hatchling by creatures that mean her harm, and they are _enemies_, these creatures and she! They have hurt her! They have shut her away as surely as if they had shoved her into a cave and shattered the rocks all around it, leaving her trapped and crying to breathe in the dark until Patience rescued her.

She will not eat their fish.

They should set her loose, and she will catch her _own _fish, and then she will come back and catch them too.

_That_, she signals as best she can, glancing at the destruction and stink. _You!_ she glares at the creatures. And she whistles _certain-true-sure_ with her shoulders set.

The red-furred creature makes laughing sounds, and babbles to its companion with scorn. Edge can see it glaring at her, and she glares back. It has been here before to look at her, to roll its eyes and flap its paws and press its face to the barrier between it and her. Its face is no better blown up like a bubble spikes fish, or with its tongue showing without a smile, or pulled out long by its own paws.

Creatures pose _not-impressed_ as visibly as any dragon, and Edge longs to climb to her paws and turn her shoulder to it in reply, raise her nose and yawn without even the respect of fangs, and then spin sharp-quick and burn its face from its skull.

The other creature, all dark coverings and pale skin and fur, hums _patience _like a hunter, and Edge fights to keep her ear-flaps from lowering and her body tense, even as she cringes away on instinct. _This _creature, she fears.

It raises a paw, _tch_ing for attention, and the two creatures jabber to each other, waving at her. The dark-pale one makes more sounds, _yowp_ing like a mother cuffing a misbehaving hatchling who knows no better,and jumps on the red-furred one's sounds when it makes them.

_She _will not pay attention. Edge will ignore them. She hunches her shoulders as high as she can, wishes for her wings, and tucks her head beneath one foreleg.

A _creak_ snaps her head up again, and she bares her teeth behind the binding. The dark-pale creature has opened the barrier.

Edge cannot run and she cannot fight, but she has another trick, and as fear floods through her body, she sees her paws begin to fade.

They go as dark as the ground beneath her, taking on the rough grain of it and the way the shadows fall across it, so that the bindings seem to stand alone and empty. The fade rushes up her limbs towards her body, hiding her –

And with a great effort of will, Edge shoves it back down.

She is trapped here, and the creature that trapped her knows it! It will see her fade and know she is still here, and one more of her secrets like hiding fangs and her scars will be caught and devoured.

When she looks up again, she knows she was not quick enough.

The creature's fangs are bared, and its voice is low and considering, its paws clasped before its chest. It meets her eyes even as she tries to look away, and it speaks as if _praising _her.

Edge cowers.

The red-furred creature squawks, and the dark-pale one waves a paw _dismissal_, crouching before her. There is a fish in its other paw, and an uneasy stink about it that Edge does not like at all.

It speaks to her, scolding, and waves the fish before her.

_No_, Edge refuses, turning away.

Its voice goes chiding, cajoling, even fond, but it is a lie, and Edge bristles _wrong!_

Anything this creature wants her to do, she does _not!_

The creature sighs and shakes its head, and releases the fish. As Edge watches, baffled and afraid, it reaches within its skins and pulls out a sharp thing. She recognizes sharp things now.

The blade is hidden, within something that folds and flops like a giant leaf.

Edge had quite liked leaves, when she met them.

But the blade is not hidden for long.

There is a _terrible _stink, sharp enough to cut like claws, that comes from it, and Edge recoils as far as she can.

_Bad air!_

She does not like _at all at all at all _when the creature slices the blade across her scales, barely deep enough to cut, but her paws slide away from beneath her when she tries to pull away, and her jaws freeze mid-snap at the very limit of their movement.

_Bad air_ and the darkness of too-deep caverns flow over her, and Edge collapses like a rockslide.

When she wakes again, the fish are inside her – she can taste them in her throat, even through the memory of _bad air _thick on her tongue – and the creatures are gone.

She eats, after that.

Every bite tastes of hate.

* * *

_To be continued._


	5. Chapter 5

_**Freefall**_**, Part Five**

_Ten _ships.

Ten ships, not sixty, and Astrid counts them for a fourth time, her heart surging in relief. _Ten _ships, even though she recognizes them all too well. Oh yes, this is Drago's lot, no question. Except for one wide-bellied light craft under tow, those are his ironclad ships. It's a slight blessing that these are smaller than the warships she and her friends had been held captive aboard, and escaped from, and returned to raid from the sky.

Her Vikings don't stay down. Astrid supposes she can't be too surprised to say the same about other warriors. But why couldn't they have gone somewhere else?

With their jagged edges and stained wood, black sails dark against the sea, the slow-moving ships look like lumbering nightmares that have somehow crept out into the waking world. Astrid looks down at them as Stormfly rustles unhappily, deliberately ties all the curses she'd been leveling at Eret into a tight knot, and cuts it free.

Hard to fault him for being frightened, with these things looming, as braziers flare to life and mounted, massive crossbows are winched around in response to the dragons in the sky. Alarm bells clang, and a deep drumbeat echoes across the waves, warning the ship's crews – in case anyone's missed the three dragons overhead – or warning Astrid and her riders away. They're heavy, nasty things, like shadows have been built into them, with nothing of the clean speed and honest labor of a proper longship. They plow through the ocean rather than riding across it, like they're tearing their way through the world, heavy with dread and destruction, slavery and fear.

She'd been around Drago and his soul-crushing war machine of an army for only a couple of days, and she'd still spent more than a few wash days afterwards scrubbing her hands and arms with butter-cooked lye, trying to get the touch of his ships off her skin. Eret had _worked _for the man, however reluctantly. He'd been in the thick of it all. Some part of Astrid would love to judge and despise him. He sold the dragons he captured to a man who set out to break their souls and work them until they died.

But then she'd have to condemn herself. How many did she kill, that might have been friends and flitabout neighbors, however reptilian and strange, in another life? She never lets herself count, even in her worst moments. She knows she'd never be able to remember them all, simply because she hadn't noticed them once they fell before her blade. One less enemy, but there were always more.

One afternoon, after the peace was won and the real victors were long gone, back to whatever wild realm they'd come from and taking their leviathan king dragon with them, Astrid had found herself breaking up a quarrel – such a small thing – between two older women and a Zippleback that had sneaked up on them, curious about the bright tablecloth they'd brought out into the sun to stitch.

The two-headed dragon/s had been bobbing both heads up and down in what everyone now knows is typical Zippleback interest behavior, but Gyda and Hilda hadn't known that at the time. They'd been trying to fend the Zippleback off with just their needles and their voices, and Astrid had jumped in the middle and shooed the Zippleback away with no harm done. Even Gyda's wayward needle-stab had caught more in Astrid's tunic than it had in her flesh. The woman really is half-blind.

The Zippleback had plodded away with its/their tails waving in disappointment, glancing over its/their shoulders hopefully with every step. Astrid had calmed the sisters down, extracted the needle from her arm, and walked home very carefully. And with no one to see or hear, she'd thrown up everything she'd eaten that week, nose and eyes running with what were not – _not! – _tears.

So easy, after so long at war.

_So easy_, and not a drop of blood shed.

There are warriors on Berk who boasted of their kills, once. She remembers the aftermath of so many raids, listening to Spitelout and his ragged band pour out an ale – down their throats, of course – for every dragon they'd sent fleeing wounded, and two for every kill. She remembers long feasting tables that rarely saw a feast, stacked with empty mugs, and the desperate laughter of men celebrating the lives they'd kept and the lives they'd taken. For a time, there'd been a craze among the men for horns ripped from the skulls of slain dragons, riveted to their own helmets and discarded just as quickly.

Astrid has as much blood on her hands as any of them, and every night she thanks whatever god stayed her hand in that training ring, sparing Stormfly a final blow.

Here are Eret's wrongs come back to haunt him. No wonder he'd been so shaken. She hopes someone's standing beside him, back on Berk, or that someone's gotten him very drunk. She can't look back to check: they've come too far.

"Stay on me," Astrid calls back to her escort, such as it is. Not for the first time, but – she really swears this time – for the last, she regrets that she doesn't have more experienced dragon riders. Most people on Berk are happy enough with their feet on the ground and dragons where they belong: at their sides, not (as Gustav had put it) under their butts.

Stoick had once banished her and her practicing riders from the village entirely, because "after the seventh long rant about you and your crazy crew of brats" – it had been a _very _long Gripe Day, and Astrid hadn't enjoyed standing next to him, silent by long-established custom, listening to detailed lists of what pests her riders were being – "a man dreams of the Nokkvessons and their stupid family rules, and you didn't hear me say that."

The very day these ships clear out of her territory, she's recruiting more riders if she has to drag the first people she can reach by the scruffs of their tunics and _throw_ them onto the nearest dragons' backs.

Until then, she'll do the best she can with what she has, as usual.

"And not a word!" she yells again. It's all very well having a Zippleback and a big Monstrous Nightmare backing her up, here to raise hell and set things on fire if anyone takes a shot at her from one of those catapults, but she's less than happy about having Snotlout and the twins along for the ride. "Unpredictable" is probably the nicest thing anyone's said about the three of them together. A shame Fishlegs doesn't ride a dragon a little more inherently maneuverable: at least Astrid can trust him to shut up sometimes, if only because he's usually too busy jotting down notes about dragons in the weird chicken-scratch shorthand he's developed for himself.

They look very fierce, with their faces painted and their dragons too, their various favorite weapons ready to hand, but only until they open their mouths.

There have to be some sensible people on Berk who Astrid would trust on dragonback, and she's going to think of their names any minute now.

"You're seriously going down there?" Snotlout yells back straightaway. Oh well. Fearsome keeps pace with Stormfly as Astrid nudges her into a long arc around the fleet, trying to see everything she can. Barf and Belch aren't far behind.

"We should just drop rocks on them! Rocks on fire! Yeah! What did we spend all that time flying around in the woods for? I got a pinecone down my shirt!"

"I'll stuff a pinecone somewhere else if you don't do as you're told for once," Astrid snarls at him. Six, seven, eight mounted crossbows on this ship alone, their arms wider than hers outstretched. Two figureheads she hopes aren't real dragon skulls. Maybe two-score men in armor just on deck, and a dozen more in lighter gear. A hoist that looks big enough to pick up one of Berk's lighter fishing ships, tethered down. No dragons, she notices with grim pleasure. "Maybe I can turn them around and send them away before this turns into a war."

"Yeah!" Tuffnut snorts. "Or maybe cake will rain from the sky."

"Cake with _raisins!_" Ruffnut specifies. Eret had brought a small crate of raisins back from one of his trading runs and thereby won Ruffnut's undying affection. Again.

Astrid cuts across their backchat with a sharp clap. "Enough already!" she orders. "Look, that one in the lead is the biggest. Anyone think that's not their command ship? Don't answer that, it wasn't a vote. Follow me, stay in the air, don't come to my rescue unless I give the signal, and do _not _get shot. Everyone understood that? Repeat it back to me."

"Don't get shot," says Ruffnut. "Duh. Can we shoot them?"

"Not unless you're coming to my rescue. When do you do that? Tuffnut?"

"When you give the signal. Or scream really super loud. Or they attack you."

"Close enough. Snotlout?"

"Stay in the air," he mutters.

It'll have to do. "Well, we've certainly got their attention by now." The three dragons have completed one wide loop of the fleet, hopefully a little too fast for anyone to have gotten a bead on them, and Astrid can almost feel Berk at her back and the eyes she knows are on her. To most of her people, they'll be nothing more than colorful specks in the air, and she bets there's a right royal brawl breaking out over the village's limited stock of spyglasses. Maybe they've got Sven calling out announcements.

Is Stoick watching? Has he left his quiet house for this? Does he have faith in her, with the last – _gods, please let this be the last _– of his long-dreaded enemy's fleet on the horizon?

She owes it to them all to get this right. If there's one thing all of Berk knows, it's that there's nothing worse than an unnecessary war.

"Brave girl, Stormfly," Astrid says, quietly, and points at the lead ship. "Take me there."

Stormfly doesn't like it, but she trusts Astrid, and she stoops towards the deck of the lead ship in a shallow glide. Astrid can feel every instinct in her dragon's body poised to turn them around and flee, and she fights the urge to look over her shoulder and check that her backup is still there.

She's less worried about them leaving her than she is about them following too close or drifting too low and _everyone _getting caught in some giant net or something.

Again.

Astrid scans the men gathered on the lead ship. They raise their fists at her, snarling, and gesture broadly. Somehow she doubts they're blessing her. She can't make out the words, which she's probably glad of, but she gets the general idea from the hisses and jeers and catcalls she does catch. But most of them back away from the main deck as if they're clearing a place for her to land. Which is odd…

One man doesn't step back. There's no begrimed metal armor or rough-cured furs with the animal's skull still attached, not for him. Oh no. It's boiled leather and local cloth for him, a _Viking _warrior among all these too-familiar strangers. He stands out in the open with his arms folded and his face set in a very familiar smirk, and Astrid's day gets that crucial bit worse.

"Oh, you have got to be _kidding _me," she growls to herself, and raises her voice into a shout. "_Dagur?_"

Dagur bursts out laughing, so yep, it's him. Nobody else laughs like that. All of Snotlout's ex-minions put together couldn't laugh like that.

"_Told you _I'd be back!" he yells at the top of his lungs. "I told you so!"

"What, we didn't drop you in the ocean enough?" Astrid snaps as Stormfly lands, the Nadder lifting her claws one by one, keeping them away from the grimy wood of the deck in an anxious shuffle and rustling her wings at Dagur. He caught her in a net once, and Astrid can tell that the dragon hasn't forgotten. She hasn't, either, and she eyes the rigging and the various strapped-down chests and barrels warily, looking for the ambush. "Do you have the slightest idea who these ships belong to?"

"Yeah," he glares, both hands clenching into fists rather than reaching for the heavy sword strapped to his belt. Oh look, his hair is growing back at last. "They're mine!"

If she laughs at him, he might explode. She's seen it happen. She's caused it. She settles for rolling her eyes. "_Please_," she says mockingly. "As if. You're down to what, two ships now? And I'm not talking about these." If there's any doubt, because Dagur can be very stupid sometimes, she waves a hand at the other ironclad ships that seem to have replaced the somewhat battered pair of longships that were all Dagur had left, last time she or anyone else checked.

She _knows _that a good portion of the onetime Berserker fleet is sitting in Berk's harbor, painted silly colors – the twins again – and hung about with any number of shields branded with Berk family crests. Fishlegs keeps his possibly-breeding Gronkle pair on one of them. He practically lives there these days. So good luck to anyone trying to take that one back. There aren't many places in the Archipelago Dagur could have put in to patch up the few ships he's gotten set on fire under him, and gods know he doesn't have any shipwrights loyal to him anymore.

And yet, here he is with the remains of a madman's war fleet. Astrid doesn't like this.

The Berserker chief – the _exile _Berserker chief, since the island he claims is all but abandoned – sneers at her. "Big talk for a scared little girl on a dragon. Go on, run away and get it over with, if you're so scared!"

Astrid props her chin on her hand and her elbow on Stormfly's head. Same old Dagur. Obvious as a sheep on a roof. "You realize that if I get down, I'm gonna punch you in the nose, right?"

He shuffles his feet into a wrestling stance and crouches, fists raised before him. "Bring it!"

The men behind him – way behind him – don't make any move towards any weapons that she can see. They seem fine with glaring at Astrid and Stormfly from a distance, at least for now. A few even start moving away, back to steering the ship before it drifts into one of the others. Those will be the halfway clever ones, then. Astrid's seen what happens when ironclad ships collide. One of them _always _loses, and then they sink. Fast.

So she sighs, kicks her boot over Stormfly's saddle, and slides down to the deck. She shakes out her hair and pointedly raises her empty hands, but not in surrender. She's just showing that they're empty before she clenches them into the promised punch. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Fearsome and Barf and Belch hovering, lower than she likes. Snotlout and the twins are probably as surprised to see – and hear, he sure can yell – Dagur as she is, and they never could resist a scene.

"You always think you know everything, don't-cha?" Dagur jeers as she walks towards him, slowly and precisely. The wooden deck doesn't ring under her boots; it's solid. He shadowboxes dramatically, making small "ungh!" and "pow!" and "gurchachacha!" noises between the real words. "Oh, you are in so much trouble now. Think you can challenge me and get away with it, like you're something? Gonna show you who the real chief around here is."

Astrid stops out of his reach, sets her hands on her hips, and smiles until he shuts up for a moment.

"Heather sends her regards," she says, too sweetly to be real.

Who said anything about fists?

Dagur's howl of rage is worth the whole damn night of standing on a table in the Great Hall with a hurried sketch of the village at her feet, yelling orders as her people raced around fortifying anything they could against an attack from sea or sky all over again. It's _almost_ worth the amazingly bad-tasting drink Gothi had poured down her throat this morning to get her voice back when she'd woken up. She hadn't even known you could _do _something that bad to honey. She's had worse mornings, but not recently.

"That – she – you – sneak – coward – you – lying – she – gonna – I'm –" Dagur splutters, face turning red with rage or embarrassment or some combination of the two. There may be steam coming out of his ears. There's spit coming out of his mouth, which is gross, but she's picked a spot just out of his range to stand and watch the show.

Astrid has been dealing with Dagur since she was a little girl newly living in Stoick's loft because Finn's house had been too full of ghosts. Man, had Oswald ever picked a bad day to haul his already-awful kid along to Berk. He'd gone straight for Astrid, and Astrid had punched him just like a yak, with the grim delight of having someone to hurt who wasn't going to be there to get her back the next day. Stoick had pulled them apart before Astrid had managed to stab her new mortal enemy, or before Dagur had managed to bite her, but they've taken plenty of shots at each other since.

Usually he doesn't turn up practically in her harbor with a _war fleet_, though. Where did he _find _even this remnant of Drago's ships? As funny as his rage dance is, it's not enough to distract her from that. Who are these people? Are they all leftovers from Drago's army, come back for more? Why are they following Dagur, of all people? How did he supply them? Even being the chief's deputy involves a lot more counting than anyone would expect, and she knows exactly how many pallets of this and tipweights of that and barrels of the other thing it takes to feed her village. Something's not right here, and she knows it.

"So tell me again," she says, even as monstrous ships sail a little closer to Berk, as the timbers propping up her hopes of a peaceful resolution here burn through a little further, as she feels more than sees Stormfly cringe towards the deck, "who the real chief is."

"Well, it does seem to be you after all," says a new voice, sleek and confident and entirely unfamiliar.

Astrid doesn't jump. She's better than that. All she does is look very slowly to her left, not forgetting about Dagur, to see a tall man standing there.

The new person is dressed in a black leather mantle that might suit a particularly fancy smith who set out to design a fireproof smock and got carried away with making his own buckles and tool belts. He's standing with his hands fixed behind his back, casually and easily. He has a very long face that still manages to be mostly smile, a wicked sort of amusement in bright blue eyes. He doesn't look quite old enough to have hair that white, but then Astrid's never seen anyone that pale, so at least he matches. Everyone she knows lives their lives outside.

None of her people have ever been _tan_, exactly, but Gothi makes a less-smelly-than-usual paste for sunburns that gets a lot of use. This man looks like he'd crisp and blacken before any healer could lay hands on him.

She doesn't buy the smile one bit.

"See?" Dagur sneers to the newcomer. "Told you she wasn't much."

"Really, my friend," he says before Astrid can jump in with an insult of her own, and then she's too busy keeping her jaw from dropping to remember what she'd wanted to say, "is that any way to talk about the good young lady chief here? It's Astrid, isn't it?" he adds, and she feels the fist still planted on her hip shift towards her belt knife. His tone is…not hostile, exactly, but she knows she doesn't like it.

"There's so much to do. Perhaps I could have a word with her while you do it."

Dagur, who this seems to be addressed to, hesitates for a moment, and then says, "Yeah. Yeah, right. Sure. Whatever." He sulks off, not without a last sneer at Astrid, and starts yelling at sailors who seem to be doing their jobs just fine without his help.

So…that's not suspicious or anything.

"He _is _fun, isn't he?" the strange man says to Astrid, still smiling, and she stomps on the urge to leap to Stormfly's back and escape.

"Not the word I'd use," she answers, holding her ground anyway. "Who are you?"

"Oh, of course," he says, placing one splayed-out hand on his chest and executing an actual, if insincere, little bow. Astrid's jaw nearly drops all over again. "My name is Grimmel. And I must say, it is such a pleasure to meet you, Astrid. I've heard so much." His eyes flick over her shoulder. "And your Nadder. Female, I see. Have you given her a name?"

It's such a peculiar question, on the heels of such a peculiar statement, that she's startled into answering. "She's Stormfly." Also peculiar – Stormfly doesn't whistle at the sound of her name. She usually knows when she's being introduced.

"How charming."

"And what do you mean, you've heard – wait, you mean from Dagur?" That's…creepy. If her skin is crawling, surely it's from memories of the way Dagur's looked at her, now and again, like she might be edible if she'd only stop stabbing him. "I wouldn't believe anything he's told you. You've met him, right? He's a liar and a braggart. I'm not sure he's living in the same world as anyone else."

"So few do," Grimmel sighs. "But no, I've been hearing about you for some time now."

"You have?" It's all she can think to say, since screaming _what are you talking about? _probably won't help.

"Of course." He smiles, somehow even wider. His face is just not that wide. He clasps his hands together before his chest, and Astrid notices that his fingers are stained in patches, almost as black as his mantle. "The little lady who took down Drago Bludvist. Oh, the stories they tell. It's an honor to meet you at last."

Pride and nausea and absolute disorientation surge and clash like seasickness in Astrid's chest, and only a lifetime's discipline, and her awareness of everyone counting on her, keeps her head high and her shoulders back and her knees locked.

_Oh, the stories they tell._

_Oh, the stories they tell._

And oh, the way those men had snarled at her as Stormfly had landed…

Drago's vengeance is so very far from over.

"You knew him," she says, instead of screaming and running away with her arms waving, because that's not what Astrid does. A true warrior knows when to run just like she knows when to duck, and facing this stranger is marginally better than turning her back on him.

Grimmel's smile turns almost rueful – at least, she thinks that's what his face is trying to do. "And regretted it daily," he assures her, and opens a hand in invitation, beckoning. "Come, come!" Turning his back on her like he knows she'll follow, he ambles across the emptying deck to a wide stairwell leading up to a higher level, and actually sits down on a stair, leaving plenty of room for her to join him. As if they're such good friends, having a chat.

Drago's ships. Drago's men, who hate her – who she'd declared herself before even as she lied to their master, as she'd named herself as from Berk. And…_this _guy? Astrid's not sure how he fits in, but she doesn't like it.

"You must tell me how you did it," he adds when she doesn't follow him. "Please, join me. Oh, have no concern for your Nadder. I won't harm her. So well-behaved!"

It's so tempting to run, and if Astrid were out here all alone with only herself and Stormfly to worry about, she would. But Berk is on the horizon, and her people need her to turn these ships around or to learn something that will let them fight these ships off. To know her enemy. To lead them to victory. And so far, all Astrid knows is that Dagur is not in charge of these ships.

He thinks he is. This Grimmel person is acting like he is. But Astrid will bet three weeks of dishwashing duty _and _one of shoveling fewmets into their experimental fields that Grimmel's hand is the one on the tiller.

Astrid takes a step backwards and meets Stormfly's anxious eyes. "Stormfly, easy," she says, softly. "It's all right. Up!" She gestures the command as she speaks it – _fly!_

Stormfly rears up, shrieking protest, but she spreads her wings and takes off in a great leap. Gods, it had been hard to teach her "leave me!"

Sometimes Astrid wonders what she did to deserve such love. All she did was let Stormfly out of one cage and not hit her for a while.

Her friend soars skyward, wailing objections even as she joins Fearsome and Barf and Belch. It doesn't take long: the other dragons are far too low for Astrid's liking. Are they watching the other ships? Don't they remember what a well-aimed catapult stone will do to a dragon?

"And you lot!" she roars at her riders. "Take them up!"

The space above the ship erupts into a fluttering explosion of golden-green spotted wings and dark-red stripes and blue dapples as the dragons – she's not too sure about their riders – do as they're told. _They _know that tone in Astrid's voice.

"Marvelous!" Grimmel applauds as she strides over to him, more grateful than ever for the axe slung over her shoulders and the extra size her bear cloak gives her. "You're quite good with the creatures. Do join me."

The slightest cry, a single whistle, and Stormfly and her friends will be back, but for now Astrid has no way out. He thinks he can unsettle her with this show of courtesy, with a smile? She'll go one better. The knowledge puts iron in her spine; she can feel it burning there like a rod fresh from the forge.

"Well, fairly good, at least," Grimmel says as she sits down on the edge of the step, pointedly out of reach and ready to leap away. He lifts a hand and brushes it across the crest of his own cheekbone, beneath his right eye. "Something got the better of you, I see."

Astrid doesn't have to put any effort into smirking at him. If that's meant to get to her, it's the wrong tactic entirely. The scar beneath her eye is a lesson she is proud to have learned. "Lost a fight with a dragon," she says without shame, and doesn't add that the dragon had been Hiccup, and she'd deserved it. "What do you want?"

"Just to talk. Do calm down, young lady." She doesn't move, and he smiles wider still. "You don't trust me."

"Of _course _I don't trust you." Astrid pours all the scorn she was saving up for Dagur into her voice. "I don't know you. Except that you knew Drago Bludvist, which doesn't say much for you, and you've brought _his _ships back to _my _island. Turn them around."

"Oh, these ships? They're not mine, truly. You'll have to take that up with Dagur. I'm just here to find out who finally got rid of Drago, and when Dagur told me all about you – well." He shakes his head and surveys the ship and the few men left to move across the deck, avoiding them both. "Such things I've heard from the men whose lives you ruined. They make you out to be all but a goddess, did you know?"

Grimmel laughs, a tiny and terrifying sound. It's not the savage, bloodthirsty sound she remembers hearing from Drago. Grimmel sounds genuinely amused, except that there's something missing from it, deep inside. "At the expense of anything more imaginative, I really did think you'd be taller."

"I'll get some bigger boots, next time I care what you think," Astrid says, trying not to resent that. She's never going to be Astrid the Vast, and most days that doesn't bother her. She'll have a title of her own that's hers, and she'll stand on as many tables as she needs to, and she'll earn her respect for her deeds in battle and in the service of her people, not for being taller than everyone else. If she's to blot out the sun, she'll do it from dragonback.

"Very good!" He sounds like he's awarding her points. "Fierce and clever, and not in the least ruffled where it shows, are you? Remarkable, that such a little thing could have overthrown Drago. I knew he was mad, but even I didn't think he was that far gone. You must have gotten very lucky."

If Astrid's skin crawls any further, it's going to swim back to Berk without her. This guy was on the same side as Drago? He must have been, even though he doesn't seem bothered by his ally's death. At first glance, he seems the sort of person the mad warlord would have crushed with a single blow, probably for smiling too much. But now she can almost imagine him lurking in the warlord's shadow, smirking, and probably playing his own game behind Drago's back.

Her doubts must be showing. "Now, now, I'm not here to punish you! His followers, now… You've made a lot of people very angry. Well, you broke quite a lot of their toys. But not I. Between you and me, my dear," he adds, lowering his voice conspiratorially, "the man needed killing. I don't deny he was useful, in his way, but I'm probably happier than you are to have him gone."

"I doubt that," says Astrid, grimacing in disgust. Now she can't help but remember the furious gleam in Drago's eyes, like he was imagining the detailed deaths of her and the nearest dragon and probably the man who served stupidly over-spiced stew in the galley of his lead ship, every waking moment. _Useful?_

"So do tell me…how did you do it?"

"And why should I tell you?" Astrid pushes back, because she can't answer even if she wanted to, which she doesn't. _She _got the credit for killing Drago? Or the blame, given whose ships these are? She hadn't even been on the dragons' island when he died!

All she and her riders had done was burn some of his ships and scare his soldiers. They'd taken over his flagship while he was away, and they shook down the rest of the ships - maybe even this one! – for captive dragons before letting them go, because what else were they going to do? Take every ship captive, with the soldiers on board? They hadn't had nearly enough people for that many prize crews. Slaughter every man of them? Astrid can't imagine that. The thought makes her sick.

Astrid doesn't think she's ever killed a human being. Not deliberately. Maybe some arrow went astray in the brief, wild scramble after the dragon raids had stopped, and everyone in the Archipelago had woken up the next morning, looked around for something to fight, and found only each other. Maybe one of Drago's men got unlucky as she and her riders poured fire and everything they could throw onto their ships, scorching between them on fast-flying dragons, all of them just relieved to be out and _doing _things. But she would have planted her axe in Drago Bludvist's skull and slept well that night.

If she'd gotten the chance. But she hadn't, and her treasured warrior honor, never far from her, grumbles in her chest. Not her victory to claim, even if others are claiming it for her. There's bragging, and then there's letting lies stand.

She hadn't touched Drago Bludvist. All she'd done was run, and even if she and her friends had looped around and run back, too, had it really been that much? From what Astrid has pieced together from the other Vikings who had joined them for the battle, if she'd gone up against him – and his tame behemoth – directly, she wouldn't have stood a chance. She doesn't like that, but she knows it.

She's a warrior, but she knows she's mortal. Goddesses don't have scars. And she's not big enough to fill this role Grimmel seems to be expecting of her.

"I asked so nicely."

Gods, if the fate of Berk rides on her giving him the right answer – a hundred half-formed lies spin through her head as she grasps for the magic spell that will send this sleek-voiced snake and his too-polite threats away satisfied. What will make him leave them alone? _Yes, I'm a goddess, begone or I'll call down lightning_ – _I have a thousand war-trained dragons more than a match for Drago's_ – _I don't know, I had nothing to do with any of it, you've got the wrong person, I am a harmless woman, Dagur's a liar _– _Berk is full of warriors and my army has been secretly plotting to take over the world, we're better at it than him _–

Coward's words, liar's words, what's the magic word…

She catches the tiny smile lurking around the corner of Grimmel's too-wide mouth in his too-long face, and all her sneaking words turn to flame.

Astrid rises to her feet and holds her head high.

"So this thing you're doing. Does it work for you?" she says, coldly.

The strange man stays where he is, unimpressed. "Now, my dear –" he begins, and she cuts him off with a slicing hand.

"Watch your mouth," says Astrid, sharp and clear. The last time she played this role, she was playing. She'd looked Drago in the eye, and she'd told him a tale of being a fearless warrior queen.

Now she _is _the Chief of Berk, and she has nothing to prove to anyone who'd ever exchanged so much as a word with Drago Bludvist, much less called him _useful_. How dare Grimmel come here and threaten her, even if he smiles as he does it? She'll saw off her own hand before she thinks a word of good of Drago, but at least the mad warlord had been honest with her. At least he'd hated her to her face. How _dare _he try to make her feel small? Who does he think he's dealing with?

Astrid hasn't been the chief for very long, but she's been training for it most of her life, and if the ground she stands upon is still fresh and new, so much the more reason to defend it. She doesn't owe Grimmel answers. She doesn't owe him anything.

"I am no one's dear. I didn't get lucky. I'm _good_. I am the Chief of Berk. You will address me with respect, or I will demand it, and you will not enjoy that."

Her cloak and her axe are heavy on her shoulders, and Astrid rests her stronger hand at the axe hilt at her waist, ready to yank it from its strap and swing it around in a blow that can split a battle torch halfway through. Grimmel's pale eyebrows go up, but he still doesn't stop smiling. "Now. You are in my waters. I don't like your ships. I don't like you. Turn your ships around. But tell me what you really want, first."

Her voice doesn't waver. Her knees don't shake. She's sure there's nothing but confidence in her eyes, as there should be. She can taste ashes.

And yet all Grimmel does is smile. He raises his hands, and he claps them together softly, one, two, three. "Very good," he says. "_Very _good. But you'll play along, Chief of Berk. Look again."

He points past her, and with her heart sinking, Astrid turns to look, even as she knows she's playing along as she was told to.

Dagur's been busy, she sees. From here, she can see all those missing men crouching beneath canvas and hidden in the shadows of bulkheads and the heavy structure of the ship. Every one of them has a crossbow at full draw, leveled not at her, but at the three dragons in the sky. And those dragons are once again so much lower than she likes – _why _does she not have dragonriders with longer attention spans, who might not be lulled into relaxing when some situation doesn't explode straightaway?

"If you're wondering, and I can see that you are," Grimmel all but oozes, "they're excellent bows. Quite the range they have. Imagine all the poisons they might be coated with. You're familiar with dragonroot, I'm sure? It's a fascinating starting place, but I've never been satisfied with its effects. Now, the fangs of the Ironblight –"

He cuts himself off with a too-casual wave, rising to his feet. "But you're not interested in poisons, are you, Chief of Berk? A shame. No, the word and the promise are enough for a clever girl like you, I'm sure."

If she even raises her voice, Stormfly will come for her – her friend will dive, and nothing will keep her away, and poison arrows will turn the air to a toxic hailstorm. To say nothing of Snotlout, who's kept Fearsome in hand this long somehow, and Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who deserve better than to sink and drown alongside their Zippleback – and that's most of Berk's organized dragon defenses down in a single shot, _why _has she not insisted on training more riders? And when Berk's flock rises to defend their territory, with no one to call them off in the face of poison arrows –

Astrid grits her teeth, and growls through them, "I get your point. But it's the same question. What do you want?"

Gods, she just wishes he'd stop smiling. It's like talking to a skull with hair. "I have your attention, then?"

She's going to nail this guy into a spiked barrel and kick it down the longest slope she can _find. _"You had it the moment you crossed the horizon. _What do you want?_"

Grimmel folds his stained hands before his face, tapping his two pointing fingers against his lips. "Now, I heard a most fascinating tale from Dagur. I grant he's not the most reliable witness, but in among all the stories Drago's soldiers told about little blonde Valkyries – and trust me when I say they were somewhat more flattering than you truly deserve –"

His eyes flick up and down her body, disinterestedly, and somehow that's creepier than the way Dagur stares at her sometimes…and is staring at her now, with his own crossbow leveled straight at her chest from the shadows of the hold. Dagur winks at her, sneering, and Astrid resolves to get every last stubborn old woman off Berserker Island if she has to knock them over the head and fly them away herself.

"– there was something else they mentioned, when they limped back home." Grimmel's polite veneer has some cracks in it now. It doesn't help him any. "Curious how two tales can intersect, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Astrid spits, because she doesn't.

There's a fervid and hungry light in his eyes, and his reply sounds close to rapture. "Somehow, you have a Night Fury," says Grimmel. "I'll have that, then."

* * *

"You came all this way," Astrid growls when she's gotten her breath back, even as part of her goes _oh no oh no oh no, not _them_, leave them out of this._ It's not the first time she's been accused of keeping Toothless like he's a secret weapon, when he's nothing of the kind and has never been hers. She's going to nail Dagur and his giant stupid mouth into that barrel right along with this washed-out creep, "for a _legend?_"

"No legend," Grimmel answers, unfazed. "Please, young chief. Don't attempt to lie to me. No one knows Night Furies like I do. Even Dagur couldn't mistake anything else for one."

"I do not have a Night Fury," says Astrid. It's true.

Without hesitation, Grimmel counters, "But you know of one. Ah – there it is." He's pointing at her. She takes a pace back before she can stop herself. "I can see it in your eyes, Astrid. I could see it in Dagur's. That beautiful, terrible creature, reflected there. There's a look in the eyes of someone who's seen a Night Fury. I thought never to see it again. You can't imagine – ah. Well. One way or another, I'll have it from you."

She wants more than anything to look away, to close her eyes and scrub at them, as if he really could stare straight into her memories and see Toothless there. Playing with his dragon-boy on the shore, as she gaped from afar and realized that dragons could love. Battling Drago in the warlord's shipboard dragon-fighting arena, holding their enemy at bay while Hiccup set all of them free. Facing down all of Berk at the end of a war, bright with triumph in the sun. Goading Stormfly into a wild chase of a flight as Astrid clung to her back, Night Fury and Wildfire laughing in matching voices. Can Grimmel really see him there? She wants to keep even her memories of Toothless far, far away from this serpent of a man watching her so avidly.

"For a moment there, I really thought you might not be crazy," Astrid says at last. It's an effort, to stare right back at those intense blue eyes and the hungry obsession in them, when she wants so badly to look up and scream to her friends, _Get away! Fly back to Berk and tell Stoick to start over, to pick someone smarter next time. Or maybe someone who doesn't think she's smart. You're right, Snotlout, we should have just firebombed the whole fleet straightaway and been done –_

Ew. No. Not that last one.

Anything but Snotlout being right.

"I take it back. Why in all the hells would you deliberately go after a Night Fury? Have you seen what one of those can do – assuming I have?"

His smile has become a smirk, and Grimmel backs up a pace of his own, seating himself on that step again with a broad gesture. But she no longer feels like she's standing over him. Something in the air has changed. Now she's standing before him, a supplicant. With so much to lose. In his power. Afraid.

She _hates _it. She hates what a child he's reduced her to with a single strike.

"Of course," says Grimmel. "I've fought them. I've killed them. I've hunted them." Simple sentences, said so casually, and they turn a small but significant corner of Astrid's world upside down. "Really, it's highly annoying that you even saw one. I thought I'd got the lot."

So many things she wants to say pile up on Astrid's tongue like seventeen sheep all trying to get through a gate at once, bleating. "You –" is the one that gets out. "You – _kill _Night Furies?"

"I'm the best," he says, like it's simple. "And do you know the terrible thing about being the best, Astrid?"

No more _chief_, she notices with some unhorrified trace of her attention that has time to be angry. "Do. Tell."

If he's noticed her hands in fists, longing to reach for her axe again, or that the crossbows still leveled are the only things keeping her from cutting him into smug pieces right here and now, he's not bothered. He's still smiling. Astrid hates that smile.

"Oh, it's so boring."

When she blinks at him, at a loss for words that aren't screams of horror and rage and disgust – for some reason the shriek in her head sounds like Hiccup; sometimes she misses him, but right now she wishes the Wildfire far away from here – Grimmel just shakes his head and continues, "A man likes a challenge, Astrid. And I hate to leave a job undone. I'm a professional."

Long, stained fingers lace together, resting on what's probably a knee – she's not peeking under that mantle to check. "So. Are you going to be a challenge?" It's a threat, however casually uttered. "Or are you going to tell me where to find my missing Fury?"

Astrid's going to challenge this man to _something_, and it's going to involve lots of sharp objects, dragonfire, and big, big boots. And that'll be before the twins get their turn. The twins _like _Hiccup and Toothless, for admittedly bizarre reasons, and they have great (and bizarre) ideas.

"No."

Small word. Powerful word. She throws it out there like the challenge he wants so badly, and dares him to step over it.

"So, you don't have one, then. You're sure?"

"Get," says Astrid, Chief of Berk and not a little girl, out of her depth and afraid for her friends, "lost."

Grimmel nods like she's said something profound. "Ah…not so sure. Then I propose a trade."

The ship rocks beneath her as the wind changes, bellying the sails out to their fullest spread, and out of the corner of her eye, Astrid can see on the other ships that there's no symbol on them. They're dead black. They're _Night Fury _black. She's close enough to Grimmel to see that his leathers aren't dragonhide – the texture is wrong – but she notices the color anew.

Not practical.

Obsessive.

"What kind of trade?" Astrid asks flatly, when it's clear he's waiting for her to. Somehow, she suspects that if she refuses to play along, he won't say a word until this ship crashes prow-first into Berk's cliffs, and she wants off this ship first.

(He can stay aboard as it goes down.)

"Very simply, I will send all of these ships away, and your little friend Dagur, too. That's what you want, isn't it?"

Dagur's still crouching in the stairwell to the hold, but if she listens very hard, Astrid thinks she can hear him talking to himself rather than listening in. Typical Dagur.

"Oh, he'll howl and kick and swear, I'm sure," Grimmel interjects, following her gaze. He grins like they're sharing a joke. "I'll strap him to the top of the mast so you can listen as we drag him away over the horizon. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"That's possibly the first thing you've said that I agree with," says Astrid, however reluctantly. "Getting rid of him, and you, and these ships, after all you must have done to get them here? There's got to be a catch. What do you want in exchange?"

"Lovely. Lovely. I do like you, Astrid. You're clever." _But not as clever as me_, that skull-grin says clearly, until Grimmel stands to look her in the eye again. He's taller than her. Astrid's seriously considering those boots. The smile falls away at last to be replaced by what, for Grimmel, must be a serious expression.

"I'm a hunter, young chief. I'm the best. You may not have that Night Fury in bridle and halter like your charming little Nadder, but it's been here."

Gods _damn _Dagur – if Grimmel doesn't tie him to a mast, Astrid will.

"I ask your leave, my dear –" He pairs this with another of those nauseating little bows, even more insincere than before. "– to hunt upon your island, to track my prey through your woods and drive it to the shore."

She doesn't have to think about it.

"No."

She doesn't believe that Grimmel will find Hiccup and Toothless anywhere on Berk. As far as she knows, they haven't been back since Drago threw them into separate cages and set out to destroy their home. Honestly, Astrid shouldn't blame them. She knows how badly humans frighten Hiccup, as ironic as that is, given that he was born on Berk. She can't imagine what they went through, at the warlord's hands. Maybe even friendly Vikings are more than he can handle, all her hard work undone.

She blames them anyway, because she was the one who had to watch Stoick watch the sky, fading a little further every day they didn't show. Even if they'd only come back to watch the village from the clifftops or the roof of the Great Hall, at least Stoick would have known his son, long-lost and never to be truly regained, was alive and all right. Even if the Vikings had gotten up the morning after yet another midnight dragon stampede – the local flock thinks it's funny, she _swears_ – and found Night Fury tracks among the more familiar pawprints all over the village, she and the chief could have laughed about it together. They could have wondered what sort of wild leaps Toothless would have had to take to get his paws just there, and, well, Astrid doesn't know exactly. Made swooshy dragon noises together. Oh wait, that's the twins again.

She was the one who watched Stoick get so _tired_.

But they are welcome on Berk, Night Fury and Wildfire, brilliant dragon and fierce-eyed dragon-feral. They will be welcome there even if Astrid has to hold their place open for the rest of her life. They will be safe on Berk if she lives to be as small and mute and hobbling as Gothi, knocking her staff into the knees of future Berkian brats who don't know how special those two are.

Even if they're not here now, she will not let this creepy hunter, who boasts of killing Night Furies like he expects praise and awe for it, stalk through Berk. To lay traps in _her _forest and kill where he pleases? And she doesn't for a moment expect he'll limit himself to the Night Fury he's not going to find. Her people made dragons – all dragons, as long as they played nicely and followed the rules – welcome in their home, after so long at war. She can't unleash this cruel-eyed man on the local flock.

And Berk is _their home_. He might as well ask to walk into Astrid's house and paw through all her hidden treasures, to pluck tangles from her hairbrush and the socks she's secretly trying to mend from under her bed.

Does he really expect her to stand back and let him search Berk, _her Berk_, as if he has a right to? Like they haven't held their island against invasion this long already, no matter what – or who – came against them?

"You don't set foot on Berk," Astrid says, clearly. "Never. Never. Never."

Grimmel smiles like he's heard every word of this and enjoyed it, lacing his fingers together once more.

"Interesting," he says. "We'll see."

She expects to have to fight her way out, but to her surprise, Grimmel raises a hand and calls out a command in a language she doesn't understand. A moment later, he repeats, "Stand down! Bows down!" in her own local Norse – and Dagur's. The exile chief yells in disappointment, and a _twangggg-thud! _makes Astrid think he's probably shot the bulkhead in frustration.

If only, she finds herself thinking, Dagur had been in command here. Dagur doesn't make sense, but at least she's used to his particular flavor of crazy.

"Well, go on, then," Grimmel dismisses her, flapping a hand at her to brush her away. "I've no interest in Nadders; they're too easy prey. Call her down, then, and be off with you."

Astrid says, breathlessly, "You can't be serious."

"Astrid. Really." He frowns at her like she's a child who's thrown a minor tantrum. "I told you. I'm a professional. I'm always serious." She seriously doubts this. "Now, go home."

The deck behind her is still deceptively clear even as threats breathe from every corner, but there's nothing left for Astrid to do but sidle back to Stormfly's original landing spot and whistle for a rescue. Gods, she's never been so glad to see Snotlout and the twins flying guard at Stormfly's sides.

And of course she's in Stormfly's saddle – if they ever start keeping speed records, Astrid's going to have the All-Berk Fastest Mount-Up Time nailed – when Grimmel beams at her, eyes fervent, and calls after her, "See you there!"

"What was –" Ruffnut blurts out as their dragons scream into the sky. They're smart. They know danger when they see it waving them goodbye, however cheerfully.

"Not _now!_" Astrid snaps, and they flee back to Berk.

* * *

There's something simple in the array of herbs and close-wrapped vials and bottles of ground-up mixtures spread out before him, even if most people would call it magic. Travel far enough, and they'll call it something else, _alchemy. _Most people are fools. Grimmel knows the purpose of every liquid and powder and finely chopped root in his cabin, even if the dark wood bears scars from a few reactions that proved a little more energetic than he predicted.

If he were a different man, he would be humming with pleasure as he pulls out the ingredients for a brew he thought he'd never mix again, sniffing carefully at the blue-veined leaves, dried and pressed flat between the pages of a stained book. Its pages have long since been scrubbed clean of whatever meaningless script had once been painted on to it. The thin gold leaf, carefully removed, had paid for some of his more unusual supplies.

Still fresh enough to sting, after all these years. Grimmel sets book and plant on the bolted-down table, flipping the pages open with something like delight. The recipe is burned into his heart, but he won't risk getting it wrong, with such a gift at stake.

Around him, his own little ship rocks slightly. It's lighter and faster than the command ship in the lead, and he can sail it on his own, as long as he doesn't try to take it into too large of a storm. His remaining Deathgrippers are senseless in their pens fore and aft, and then there's the smaller cell just next door to his workroom. The ship is big enough to store his sky craft, but small enough to be towed along in the wake of this fragment of the fleet.

Grimmel notices them go, and then sets them aside. The signal to advance and surround has already been sent to the others, the warships waiting far out of sight of Berk's justly-worried dragonriders. He's gotten what he came here for, and they're no longer his concern.

A phial of fine powder – it isn't sand – joins the leaves, as does a bottle of thick, dark liquid. He fills a certain cup to the edge, and pours it out into the wide, flattened tray fixed to the table, leaving it to set and dry. He grinds his last scrap of black scales to dust in a mortar without remorse; he'll have more than he needs to replace them, very soon.

He doesn't hum – hunters who make too much noise don't catch their prey, especially not the wiliest of them all – but he does tap his fingers against the table in a quiet tattoo as they come free. A bad habit, but he'll tolerate it for now.

A few minutes later, the light sound is drowned out entirely by the clatter of boots down the ship's ladder. They approach his cabin rapidly, and Grimmel looks up in annoyance.

By the time Dagur throws the door open and storms in, he's covered over that scowl with the blandest expression he's capable of, which is very bland.

"What are you _doing _down here?" the young barbarian demands. "That stinks!"

"To you and me, perhaps," Grimmel answers. "And only at this stage. Was there something, Dagur?"

"Yeah! What are you doing over here, old man? You coming along, or what?"

Grimmel sets down the vial he's holding with a sigh. "Dagur, my friend," he lies. "You've got this. You have your army, your fleet – you even have two of my Deathgrippers, as promised."

The boy doesn't like the reminder. One eye twitches. "Yeah," he repeats in a very different tone. "'bout those…"

"Now, we talked about this. Keep her busy for me, all right?" He puts a hand on Dagur's shoulder, as if he really cared. He doesn't. "I'm relying on you."

Dagur grimaces like he's put a thought in his mouth instead of his brain and is trying to chew on it, which Grimmel rather suspects to be the truth. "You're really going? But – aw, fine. I'll show Astrid. No problem. Didja see her run? Hah! Where are you going anyway?"

The light from his worktable lantern is dimming, but when Grimmel trims the wick and refills it, he sees that the liquid has dried through. He picks up a scraper from its groove in the table and starts peeling the flakes away, brushing them into a small, unlit brazier. They join the base mixture already there from a previous stage.

"It's out there," he says as he works, unbothered by the young barbarian looking over his shoulder. Dagur's expression, when he checks, is firmly in the _this is strange weird magic, what is happening, should I be running away _category. "And I'm going to find it."

He'd asked to hunt across Berk for the Night Fury, and he'd seen horror in Astrid's face quite clearly, but underneath it, for Grimmel is a practiced observer of horror, he'd seen relief. Hidden, surely. But there. He'd practically heard her think _look all you want, it's not here!_

People's faces don't lie, when you know how to look. Drago's mistake – one of so many – had been to understand how to read dragons only so he could yell at them, without realizing that he might read humans the same way.

Or possibly the man just hadn't cared. That's somewhat more likely.

Scraps of diced leaf join the flakes, and Grimmel carefully measures out the powdered scales. He's got just enough.

The Night Fury isn't on Berk, as far as its little chieftain girl knows. So much the better. Now it's a hunt.

And Grimmel has the most wonderful bait… He just needs to draw the creature in close enough to find her.

Well, he knows how to do that, too. He may be the only person who knows, unless Dagur has been watching more closely than he really gives the boy credit for.

"I want it alive, remember!" said boy yelps. "Bring it back to me – it's going to be mine!"

Grimmel once spent an entire hunt not rolling his eyes at Drago Bludvist. He doesn't roll his eyes at Dagur now.

"And I want its rider, too!" Dagur goes on, and Grimmel sighs. That's one part of Dagur's story he doesn't believe, and he hadn't even bothered to ask Astrid about this supposed dragon sorcerer, or possibly demon. He pours out a carefully measured handful of powder grains instead, adding it to the mix.

"Now, you've got the Deathgrippers," he reminds Dagur instead. "Two should be more than enough. You remember the commands? Just be careful with them, all right?"

He slightly enjoys the edge of panic on the young barbarian's face. If he happens to sail back this way, the Night Fury's body in his hold and Ghost tracked to her lair, and find that his beasts have eaten this young fool, he won't be too bothered.

Dragons can solve so many of his problems, handled correctly. Or mishandled by others. Boredom, for one.

The mixture looks about right. Grimmel stirs it carefully, crushing larger lumps into smaller ones with the pestle and the edge of the scraper, until it pours fine and smooth as he tips the brazier from side to side.

"Right. Careful. Gotcha. So, what is that stuff?"

Strange magic it is, then… Grimmel lights a taper from his lantern and slides the small flame into the compartment underneath the brazier. There's only a little bit of tinder there, but enough to _really _make this barbarian stare. He picks up the brazier by its chains, and holds it out at arm's length, beckoning to Dagur.

"Get the door. And watch."

For once, Dagur obeys without question, opening the door to Ghost's cell.

She's so beautiful. Grimmel bites back a sigh of delight as the lantern lights up her smooth white scales, even broken by thick cuffs chaining down all her limbs. He knows exactly how fierce Furies are, and strange variant creature that she is, she's a Fury plain to see. A dark muzzle binds her slim jaw all but closed, and the dragon-iron bars run all the way through the deck, above and below.

Her sky-blue eyes open, and she glares hatred straight at him. Grimmel smiles.

"Here, little girl," he coos, and drops to one knee. He holds the lit brazier straight in front of him, and carefully blows the wisps of smoke towards her.

He can see the moment it hits her, because she blinks, pupils dilating.

And chains or no, Ghost lurches towards him with all her strength, pulling at her bonds as her eyes blow out black, nothing in them but blank and frantic impulse. He could trace every muscle beneath those lovely white scales.

"Wow!" yells Dagur, stumbling over his own feet as he recoils, and Grimmel chuckles to himself quietly.

Like he told Astrid. He's the best. He knows things about Night Furies that _nobody _knows.

The effect doesn't last long – within a few moments, Ghost has eased off, a puzzled expression in her swiftly clearing eyes. She can see him. She's a clever girl. She sinks back onto her haunches, and her chains rattle as she shakes her head, trying to paw at her nose.

He blows out the last of the tinder, and stands, and closes the door to Ghost's prison. He shoos Dagur away, back to his favorite ship and his stupid grudge and a steadily amassing army that isn't going to take orders from him for long, and he taps the rhythm of a working song so old he's forgotten it into his worktable as he tidies the ingredients for his lure away.

Grimmel picks up the cold, unlit brazier, and he leaves the enclosed workroom behind for the open air and the sea breeze.

_Come find me, my Fury…_

* * *

_To be continued._


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **Everyone please take a moment to look at squeeb100's amazing Nightfall Sketches, either on DeviantART (add "squeeb100/art/Nightfall-Sketches-794617003" to the homepage URL) or on Tumblr (use squeeb-art dottumblrdotcomslash with "post/184332556527/lelethas-feral-hiccup-breathes-me-whistling"). I love these sketches a lot. Thank you, squeeb100!

_**Freefall**_**, Part Six**

The bright sun pours down over his scale-skins and furled gliding wings, warming his shoulders and burning away the last few drops of water the dragon-pair had splashed all over each other as they fished.

Now Hiccup snaps out a paw to brush away small fragments of stone, and they rattle down the flanks of the mountain, which rears high above the straggling forest below. Dust rises, and he huffs a breath at it, humming quiet _satisfaction _to see it billow out like smoke.

He traces a familiar line across the worn-smooth stone, and Hiccup sinks into the easy rhythm of sketching his Toothless-self. Each stroke of the burnt stick is a well-trodden path.

Toothless perches above him, watching the horizon with his eyes half-shuttered, basking in the sun. His signals say a drowsy _content _for now, even though Hiccup can hear _pfikingr_, humans, crying out to each other in the distance. But only faintly, and only sometimes. They are far away, and the sky is bright and open. In a moment, long before any human might see them, they can be away.

The little dragon draws wide-spread black wings, and the steady sweep of Toothless' spine, and hesitates.

_Uncertain doubt uncertain maybe-so_, he mutters, and his dragon-self flicks an ear-flap towards him, _concern_. But he does not whine _anxiety_, only the slow steady grumble of _thinking_, and Toothless' breaths stay calm and full.

Hiccup _whuff_s _decision_, and draws a different way. He sketches wildly, experimentally, smudging the charcoal one way and smearing it another, until the shape on the stone is _like _Toothless, but not quite so. Its face is longer, and its shoulders narrower, and its wings held lower, and its spine-fins are more jagged than Toothless' even when he is very afraid.

_You? _Hiccup whistles at it, and it does not respond.

A wisp of smoke drifts up from the distant swathe of _pfikingr _territory, cleared amidst the trees, and Hiccup notices it as he does everything else in his wild world. But the cries of birds tell him more. Those squawks and shrieks and _pip_s say that no one is stumbling around their nests or hunting them from the air, and that birds may hop and flutter and dive at each other without fear.

Those humans far away have not threatened them – yet – so he does not worry about them. _Pfikingr _do strange things, and these are very busy tearing down trees and digging lines, straight and long and boring, in the earth. They scurry too much to shout at wandering dragon-pairs. Their nests are hidden among the trees rather than standing tall to watch the sea, but all the nests are tight together, and they were easy to spot from the sky.

Those _pfikingr_ are not _Uh strrrrTT_, who listens and who flies, and they are not the _St-t-t-t-t-t-kk_, who roars for them and then crouches with his signals gentled, and that is quite enough _pfikingr _for Hiccup and Toothless for now.

If there was a human thing _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _did not understand, or that they did not like, perhaps they would bring that to the Island of Dragons and Strange _Pfikingr_ for its Alphas to take apart for them.

Perhaps.

But no dragon-cousins whistled reply when Toothless called out to them, asking _where? _and warning _us here yes us this-place us hunt warn well? well?_

So they are not trespassers on another flock's nest, to steal and intrude and frighten with their stranger-ness and their sad thing. Dragon and dragon-feral can rest and bask and chirrup to each other, high above the trees but hidden against the sun-touched cliffs and peaks, without concern.

Hiccup grunts _fine-then_ at the not-Toothless drawing, glancing over his shoulder with his head lowered _guilt_. The Lost One Like Them does not rise and roar, does not crane its head over his to see itself in the stone. It does not move – he _forgets!_

He paws at his eyes, leaving a streak of black charcoal across half his face. The dust hurts them. Well, this shape is not the right dragon, then.

The dragon-feral sets to work again, trying to give the Lost One life the only way he can.

He has always been able imagine things he has not yet seen. He and Toothless can think about _maybe_. They can plan for far away days that are _not yet_. He and his dragon-beloved can think up things that _might _be, and then plan to make them so.

It is better to imagine dragons Like Them that might be, rather than chewing over what to do with the one that is, and yet is not. He and Toothless have chewed on that, and it has become as tasteless as a long-dry bone.

Toothless' tail flips over the ledge, brushing past him, and Hiccup tightens the lines of a stranger-dragon's tail. He licks at the tip of a soft-claw and smears away the charcoal, moving it to a spot where seawater droplets have fallen from his tangled, overlong mane. This dragon rears on its hind legs, batting at the air with its fins spread out for balance, but its legs stretch too far and its nose rises too high to be Toothless-_love._

The stick crumbles away, and Hiccup growls halfheartedly at it. He sits back on his haunches, reaching up to tap the drawing-with stick against his dragon-self's side for Toothless to char again, and Toothless obliges with his softest breath of low flame.

He sketches and smudges, chirruping to both halves of himself, and little by little, the cliff ledge fills up with black dragons.

One recoils from an unseen enemy, its fangs bared. One yawns, its body sloped into a long stretch. One crouches _mischief, _bright and clear. One stalks a small prey-thing, a paw lifted. One watches nothing, as determinedly as Toothless_-dearest_.

Hiccup remembers his Toothless-half smaller, long ago. And so an awkward hatchling, its wings and head too big for itself, chases the tail of a black dragon stretched out upon the stone. He and Toothless play among them, familiar dragon-shadows among the imaginary flock. Each face is different; each body, its own.

He still does not know which was the Lost One.

_You? _he wonders at the dreamed-of dragons. _Where you where searching you-here yes? _He crouches instinctively, begging answers from a dragon who will never stand over him like a mother – _had _it been a mother, or a mate? The dragon-feral reclaims his discarded drawing-stick and gives the flock eggs to love and protect and sing to, kept warm and safe by the side of the dragon guarding so alertly.

Did it tell stories as he and Toothless-_love _do? Did it have a partner-self, a _(click)-phuh, _too?

He will never know, and Hiccup paws over his imaginary dragons, darkening a shadow here and changing the texture on another. It has stripes now, black on black, so _this _dragon cannot be the Lost One. Its scales are all the same, like Toothless'.

_Look! _Hiccup chirrups, pawing at the air. _Toothless-beloved-self look here this see here here here look you-like? yes? good you like? this-one uncertain-maybe this sad-lost-egg look glad big alive-happy pleased us-here look!_

Above him, Toothless startles from his dozing, scales _shush_ing against the rock. He clicks _stre-e-e-e-e-tch _in the back of his throat as he spreads his wings luxuriously. Quick as a strike, Hiccup whips his drawing-stick along the line of Toothless' shadow, tracing the arch of one wing.

The black dragon steps lightly over him until his chest touches Hiccup's back, and the little dragon leans back into him. _Contentment_, Hiccup purrs, and Toothless rumbles _love-you mine you mine_ back to him.

_You_, Toothless picks out unerringly with a single claw – he knows how Hiccup draws himself. _Me_, he indicates the same way, and peers around at the other drawn dragons. Not all of Hiccup's drawings make sense to him when he first sees them, but these do.

He rumbles _thoughtful_ deep in his throat, sniffing at the charcoal, and shrugs _unsure_. _Good? _he chirps, _you good these like you yes good_, but he trails off into a baffled warble. He does not know these dragons. He has never been lonely for others like him. Hiccup is like him inside, in every way that matters.

Snorting, Hiccup smears charcoal across the paws planted steady beside him, and Toothless sighs _resignation_. Posing _indifference_, he leaps away – not far, the ledge is not so wide – and twists to gnaw at a patch of loose scales instead. Nipping at the flying-with wrapped around his chest and shoulders, he catches a strap and wrenches it askew.

The little dragon knows he is being distracted, but he has thought about dragons like them now; he can be done with it. He can sprawl and roll and scratch at the back of his own head very smugly while Toothless tries to do the same. He can turn away and watch for sneaking dangers in his turn as his dragon-self rasps the itching scales against the cliff face, grunting and whining _itch itch itch not-like frustration sulk sulk snap big snap frustration_.

Hiccup does not know how dragons that are only one self _ever _manage.

_Enough Toothless-best-beloved stop calm peace love-you silly-though c'mere I do yes here_, he gestures and yips, brushing the remaining charcoal from his paws.

Toothless sidles back to him and throws himself to the ground with his head buried against Hiccup's chest, enough to shove the little dragon back against the sheer stone, and sighs _relief _as clever paws reach for the itching and find it. These scales will not shed yet, but soon.

_Good good good you yes there wait no here maybe please? please? better yes love-you you good, _Toothless mewls, and then narrows his eyes _considering_, posing _haughty _even as his tail waves _teasing_.

_Suppose maybe think-so not sure patient waiting_, he added, and Hiccup flicks all his soft-claws against Toothless' nose in a sharp _snap _of mock rebuke.

_You scratch fine big smug you busy-me see I go_, the little dragon gestures dismissively, twisting away and leaping to the edge of a higher stone.

At once, Toothless leaps for him, broad and graceless and obvious, eyes shining _laughter_ even as he howls _want no no you here now me itch yes very-much-so you mine love come-back-here mine small you mine!_

For a while, they chase each other across the mountainside, Hiccup dancing away from Toothless' broad swats and snaps with his fangs hidden, calling back mocking mimicry and whistled challenges, darting from ledge to outcropping to scree-tumbled slope where the rocks shift beneath his leaps. Toothless follows him in hops and flutters, pouncing just to pounce and to yowl. Dragon and dragon-feral both know that Toothless could seize Hiccup in an instant – if he falls for real, Toothless will rescue him – but it is only a game.

They have walked in darkness lately, grief heavy on their shoulders; it is good to play in the sun. Every shriek and scramble leaves the eater's broken nest further behind them. And perhaps the Lost One would be glad to play, too.

The wind changes, gusting across the peak, and Toothless stops, turning to face it. He rumbles _puzzlement_, the game forgotten.

_Toothless-mine? _Hiccup clicks, humming _curiosity_. He hears stone begin to crumble, and whistles a warning.

That leap is for real, not in play. The black dragon alights on more stable ground, wings still spread from the quick flight, and lifts his nose into the wind, breathing deeply. _Uncertainty_, he whimpers, and _confusion not-sure not-like Hiccup-self you that yes not-sure – wait you I this –_ he huffs, and springs to a different perch.

_There! _he signals, ear-flaps perking up in _excitement_ that fades at once. _No not-there confusion where? where? searching me this what?_

Toothless tips his head onto one side as birds and dragons do, scenting at the air. _That? _he signals, turning to Hiccup, who has come up beside him and crouches in his shadow. _You smell?_

The little dragon rears up to his full height, placing his paws on Toothless' shoulders for balance. _Don't-know_, he shrugs after a moment. He can smell only the forest and the ocean and the faintest wisp of fire/metal/cut wood/burnt meat/tar, the distinctive warning-stink of a _pfikingr _nest. This does not bother him: Toothless can smell things he cannot. They cannot do all things the same.

_What? _he asks. _That good strange-that-there you like?_

Growling, Toothless scratches at the ground with his hackles raised and his fangs bared, digging through small rocks and clawing at the stone.

_Don't know_, Toothless admits at last, but his eyes turn fixedly to the sea.

Hiccup watches him wonder, rolling onto his back _easy _and _calm _and _unworried. C'mon_, the little dragon gestures at last, snorting _amusement _with _love _woven through it, and _yowp_s a sarcastic laugh when Toothless looks blankly at him.

_You that-there you want yes? _he shrugs, _us go yes fine c'mon ready let's-go!_

Toothless stares out at the sea, whining _want want want wondering curious uncertain good-maybe curious, _tail lashing _eager. _But he glances over his shoulder to the Lost One so quiet on his back. _This? _he indicates to the dragon-feral sprawled out beside him. _This yes certain-sure important yes searching this very-much-so._

Rolling his eyes, Hiccup leaps to Toothless' shoulders and settles into the flying-with, refusing to argue further. _Impatient_, he taps out when the black dragon hesitates, and scratches at the loose scales, soothing that itch as well.

Following a strange scent is not what they were doing before, but it can be what they are doing now. If puzzling out this new curious thing will make _tt-th-ss _happy, it will please _(click)-phuh _as well.

With a sigh part _exasperation _and part _relief_, and no little bit _love_, Toothless crouches to leap, wings locked tight to his sides but trembling to snap out, feeling his Hiccup-_beloved-one_'s heart race against his spine in anticipation and delight.

And a moment later, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are gone, with only shadows left behind.

* * *

Toothless loses the scent – and then it finds him again.

And again.

And again.

And _again_, until Toothless is snapping at the wind threatening it _me bite big fierce bite me watch-out! I hunt not-funny not-like want bite!_

He beats his wings hard, taking them up over the river of air that the scent runs within, at least for now. It has jumped from wind to wind like a fish in water that _very _much does not want to be eaten. The scent calls him _come-find-me_, and then it hides from him. But it is tiresome to fly against the wind with his nose fixed to it. He will fly above it for a while, settling into a steadier glide as his Hiccup-_beloved _chirrups _comfort _to him. If he loses it, then _fine! _Toothless snorts – surely it will find him _again_, as if _it _were the hunter here!

But he has nothing to fear from only a scent, so he flies onward, darting through the thin clouds that whisper flickers of _cold _across his scales. There is no rain in them, and no sharp scent of snow in the air, and no thunder growls a warning of a cold fierce storm. Even when a sudden gust shoves against his side, Toothless senses it like paws pushing on the tip of his wing, and veers away before it can strike him.

Dipping back into the air below, he catches the scent again and grunts _satisfaction_. At last they are going the right way, even if Toothless still cannot explain why the scent calls to him. Hiccup has been thinking very hard, remembering things that smell good to suggest to him, but it does not smell of running prey-beasts, or silly-grass that is good to roll in, or the brief bright explosions of flowers and growing things that fill the open tundra for dragons to lose themselves within, or the whale that washed ashore that one time when they were smaller.

The whale had not smelled _good_, but dragon and dragon-boy had crept towards it clicking _amazement _to each other, fascinated to see a whale all around at once. They had pawed curiously at it, snarling away scavenging gulls and scuttling shore rats, sneezing _stink!_ and shuddering in horrified delight. Whales are not-to-eat: they sing like ocean-cousins, so perhaps they are dragons really.

Toothless wonders now if it too had been chasing a scent that it could not catch, and thrown itself from the sea.

_Look! _Hiccup signals now, sitting up and whistling for attention, _there new warning careful-maybe look Toothless-beloved-self there! _and Toothless forgets about looking for horned whales to chase. Besides, there is no ice to track them through, hovering curiously over the open channels and crying greetings and questions the whales never return; they would only dive and be gone.

There is a familiar sort of shadow on the horizon, solid and heavy and low, and the black dragon turns his wings towards land.

* * *

Warily, Hiccup taps at the broken branch, poised to leap away if jaws rise from the earth to snap at his paw, or nets fall from the trees all around. The scent Toothless followed has led them to a new island, buried beneath a tangled forest that spills over even into the sea. The trees wading into the water are sickly and fading, crowded out by the trees pushing them away for their share of earth. Toothless had hovered and circled and darted, searching for a place to land that was not all mud.

They could not see into the forest from above, and if there is an ambush waiting here, they do not want to fly over it. It is dangerous to show their bellies to biting arrows. Instead, they are exploring from the ground.

Hiccup can barely see any further from within it. The dense, rich canopy turns the world around him green, the light tired and heavy after wending its way through all the leaves pressed close together. Beside him, Toothless slinks through the undergrowth with his belly low, listening to the hiss of scales against fallen leaves and small broken-away twigs, still damp in the close air.

The branch does not creak. No trigger springs closed. No lurking darts spray out among the trees. But Hiccup still eyes the broken branch with suspicion, every sense on high alert. _This _thing that was a bit askew does not betray the trap he knows is waiting for them, but the _next _one might.

Sometimes things that smell good can be tracked down and pounced upon, but sometimes they are bait, luring careless flock-mates into traps set by human hunters. These, more than anything, are _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_' war.

Their long-forgotten mother set them on this path, and they have walked it faithfully. At her side, they learned to spot signs left so dragon hunters could find their prey again. They learned to walk softly, and to spot the tell-tale marks of a trap or a trigger lying in wait. They learned to spring traps harmlessly. Hiccup learned a fascination with the _how _of a trap, as he took apart the first of many under their mother's watchful gaze and understood the _this _and _that _and _therefore _of it. And they learned a bright, fierce fury.

Traps left in wait are not _fair._

Hiccup can understand _pfikingr _who roar and slash at dragons when his flock-mates pounce at _pfikingr _nests to raid, in hunger or in play. He does not like it – it hurts, to see his cousins hurt – but he can see that _pfikingr _defend their nests and their food and those like them.

To fight – to rebuke a thief, even a very hungry one – is fair. When his flock-mates descend on a ship or a human nest, they do so ready to fight and be fought, or to sneak knowing they may be seen.

But traps lurk. Traps catch _anyone_, even dragon-cousins who have done nothing to any humans at all. Traps leave no scent, and they roar no warning, and they kill slowly, badly.

Traps cannot be fought like rivals, so _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, alone among dragons, hunt them as prey and strike first.

And this scent, that so draws Toothless, has every mark of a trap.

Most dragons would flee, crying warning.

But Hiccup and Toothless can think about _one day_. They can imagine some other dragon-cousin being captured, if they were to turn away and leave the strange scent alone. It is a _must-do _as surely as watching out for a hatchling, part of who they are.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _are trap-breakers, no matter what form the trap takes.

Hiccup slips past the broken branch, setting his claws to the earth, but the ground beneath his pads is solid, sheltered from the tearing winds that howl around the edges of the forest. There is no tumble-down pit trap here beyond this half-fallen tree – it has no space to fall further, and it slumps against others. No spikes wait beneath a thin cover of earth to tear wings and soft bellies.

Low and quiet, he whistles _Tt-th-ss?_ and rears up, glancing around.

His dragon-half chirrs _reassurance no-threat careful-though you careful no-joke serious-sure wary danger here!_ and glances _you-had-better! _through the tangle of roots protruding from the earth.

_Yes careful me alert you-too_, he replies meekly, and skirts around another great tree.

Having Toothless out of sight runs a cold claw down his spine, and instincts to hurry and scramble ahead war with memories of crushing pain and paralyzing fear. One of his paws twitches by itself, and the dragon-feral draws it back against his chest.

Not long ago, they challenged a trap – and a trap-maker – they were not strong enough to fight alone. Their defeat and their captivity are bright scars still etched across their hearts. It is a nightmare they wake each other from, whimpering with shared horrors and desperate need to know that they are _together together together_, never to be torn apart again.

Perhaps those scars will never fade. Perhaps they will always dream of the Knotted Man's snarling smile, fangs bared as if he had sunk them into Toothless' side and raised his head only to lick blood from his jaws. Perhaps Hiccup will always dream of the locked cage, and Toothless of the harsh bright pit, and of the crushing _aloneness_ so powerful they could barely breathe.

But still they hunt the traps they have always hunted, carefully sweeping out safe paths through the dense forest, ready always to leap to the other's defense. It is nervous-making to walk apart, but Hiccup knows that if his Toothless-half should spring some trap, this way his Hiccup-self can set him free.

Toothless had rescued him, just so, when they were much smaller, and that memory keeps Hiccup patting at his pawsteps before he takes them. The rich green scent of the summer-fervid forest, the buzzing and scuttling of small insects away from the dragons pacing through their paths, the loud silence of the still afternoon as it slides languidly into the fading evening – Hiccup registers all of it, and sees little.

It is the things out of place he notices, not the great stillness and the small busyness of the larger forest. Disturbed leaves can betray a trap, or broken branches. There might be scratches the wrong shape, or small plants crushed by human feet in heavy boots.

He remembers a similar forest, hearing Leapaway whimper above him as he pawed at a trap that had bitten her tail. He had worked it open, and she had sprung free. But as leaves cascaded down around him, a storm of brown and auburn and amber and muddy red and fire-bright orange and wet black and shriveled dry pine sheddings, he had heard the final sound of a merciless _snap_. And the dragon-boy had frozen in shock and bafflement.

The pain had been slow, at first. He had struggled to understand even as he saw the biting trap fixed tight around the last two soft-claws on one forepaw.

It had crushed down on the bones, rather than torn into his flesh, for the teeth were spaced to seize a big dragon like Leapaway, and not a wild little boy.

Fire had burned through his paw and up into his chest, choking the whimper from his throat. His paw had been an angry sun. The little boy could only gasp and pant in the face of it, trying to wrench away – but every movement had been cut down by a strangled scream, until all the world had been pain.

Instinct had kept him all but silent. His deep-set fear of hunters had howled at him that if he cried out, he would be _heard_. Even if Leapaway had not called the trappers to her with her shrieking, the monsters would come for _him. _Leapaway was a big dragon, and _(click)-phuh _was only small, and they would take him away.

Even when he was very small, little more than a fledgling with the Alpha's voice newly clear in his skull, he had known that to be taken would be death.

Toothless had raced to his side, crying desperately for him when he had no voice but a narrow, breathless wail like a single thread. His dragon-beloved had nuzzled and licked at him, purred brokenly to calm him, roared rage for him with fire blazing in his throat, and stood still so that Hiccup could hide his face against his trembling side.

The blade strapped to his hind leg had saved him. Hiccup had known how to wedge it into the thin space between the trap's jaws, and carefully, Toothless had leaned his weight on it with a single paw. Together, they had levered the trap apart a little way and set him free.

Free, but _everything _had hurt, with every movement. The little boy had been unable to bear climbing to Toothless' shoulders, and too heavy for his dragon-twin to carry in his jaws for long. He had hidden himself in the same leaf-pile as the triggered trap, panting in agonized whimpers, until Toothless could catch up with Leapaway and howl at her that she _owed, _she _owed_, that _(click)-phuh _had been hurt in saving _her_. And she had carried him home in her claws with her head lowered _shame_.

That paw is still not quite right, and it paces through the thick forest very warily indeed.

Hiccup grunts _watchful _at the undergrowth, and scrambles to a cluster of bare roots, where he can see that nothing is hidden. From there, he eyes the great tree rearing high above him, watching the way its branches move and its leaves tremble. When he cannot see any nets coiled in it, or any tripwires stretching between limbs, he whistles _wait look me up up wait Toothless-dearest-mine careful!_

And he climbs.

Hiccup has absolutely no fear of heights; he has lived most of his life in the air, and along cliff edges, and clambering up and down the peaks of the hidden nest. He has fallen from those heights, and he has splashed hard and flat and stinging into water when he has missed his dive, and he has worn the tender black-purple-green stripes of bruises beneath his skins. But he can climb trees as readily as any cliff face, and much more easily than his bigger cousins. It is only knowing where to put his paws…

Below, he sees Toothless brace his paws against the tree trunk, green eyes watching _anxious_, and chirrups _up up me up yes good_ to his dragon-self. He steps carefully around a column of creeping bugs and a fuzzy caterpillar with its spines raised in defense.

The tree branches weave among each other, reaching out to each other and pushing for the light. Hiccup creeps carefully along one, balancing easily, and sidles onto another. It holds his weight. He whistles _here now! _to Toothless, who growls a warning up at him, and gazes out across the forest canopy.

But he struggles to trace a safe path among the tree branches, and reluctantly abandons the idea of traveling through the forest from above.

Still, he can see much further from here, and the wind that rustles through the upper branches can reach him…

_There!_ he gestures, claws biting into the tree bark as he descends. Toothless _hmph_s over him, pawing at his skins and snuffling _you safe you fine where where worried not-like silly you silly_ into his fur.

Hiccup submits to this with good grace, purring _love-you Toothless-mine no worry good us here fine_ before falling silent.

_There_, he repeats insistently, pointing off into the forest. He postures _wary_, growls _danger,_ and cries out – quietly – their flock's signal for _humans!_

From above, he could see smoke rising through the trees. Just a trickle. Just a wisp. And the changing wind had blown him a new, faint scent.

_You smell?_ Toothless asks when Hiccup tells him this, ear-flaps up and eyes bright. _Good good you like yes that smell you asking like?_

Hiccup shrugs. It was only a smell. It had not called to him.

But it might call other dragons, kin-cousins who do not know so much about traps as _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, so _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _will protect them like bigger dragons steering hatchlings away from a stream with eels in. This thing that makes a calling smell - they will steal it away from humans, because humans should not have such a thing.

They will drop it in the deep ocean, and if hunters scream at them, they will laugh and fly away.

Hunting traps is a thing they will always do.

* * *

There is a clearing among the trees, a rolling meadow left open to the sun. It is good to see the sky, but Toothless stops short on the edge of the field, fangs snapping out in a snarl.

The wind blowing across the tough grass is _choked_ with calling smell.

Toothless does not like it anymore. There is too much of it. It makes clouds in his thoughts like dreams when he has not slept enough to dream them all, and they paw at him pleading for their turn. It crawls into his nose and makes a nest there. It paces before him with its wings flashing and will not stand aside.

It was a good chase to track a scent across the sky when it dodged and flirted, tumbling away and hiding itself in the wind. Then it was like hunting a single fish through a fast stream, snapping at light flashing from scales sometimes and water-spray mostly. But now the scent is a whole herd of running-beasts that come straight to him and lie down, rolling over with their hard feet not even kicking, too fat to walk.

Now it is a _reek_. Toothless turns his face away, breathing in Hiccup's scent of dragon-musk and flock-scent and fire and ash and fish and sea air and Hiccup-_self_. Hiccup has been beside him all their life. Hiccup smells of home.

He watches the clearing sidelong, murmuring _agreement _and _careful _to match Hiccup's low, steady growl. Fallen trees and middling stones have been pulled into a rough circle, their tracks carved roughly through the low grass. In the middle of them, the embers of a fire smolder, only a few coals still lit and the earth around it dug out bare. A stone in the middle of the ashes, blackened by flames, bears a small metal holding-thing. It smokes.

The smoke fades quickly, blown away, but Toothless has no doubt that _that _is where the calling scent comes from.

He _knew _it was a trap.

But it is a trap without watchers. Bright cloths and the furs that humans wear lie strewn around the clearing, as if the humans who had been here had made nests before wandering away. Stacks of sharp things – blades and sticks for striking with and heavy-striking hitters and arrows beside their bows – have been set propped up near the fire, leaning against the biggest rock.

Grass and moss still cling to that rock, and it crouches most unmoved. It stands taller than Toothless' head could go even if he raised it high. But he will not do that. He will not show his throat to sharp things.

Piles of holding-things promise toys to steal or food to raid, if they dare, but the gleam of metal warns them away.

_Those _things are traps; Toothless recognizes chains and shackles and jaw-holders, and bares his fangs at them, hackling _defensive _and _danger_. He sees metal nets woven so tightly there seem no holes in them at all. The long sticks make him want to crouch and cringe away. For a moment he can taste the close air of the Knotted Man's deadly fighting pit, hear the screams of his fierce ones, sense the weight of the Alpha-that-followed on the wrenching emptiness between his shoulders.

Those are sticks to hold dragons at bay, and to strike them when they refuse a command.

Crouching at his shoulder, claws crooked to strike and tear, Hiccup snarls _bad bad bad this fear no no stay-away danger-here Toothless-love no back-away c'mon bad thing this _and the bitter satisfaction of a dragon who has seen a flock-mate bitten by a wolf they were warned not to taunt: _knew-it! knew-it!_

Toothless sneezes. _Stink! _he complains. _Not-like no that-there you smell? Bad smell enough no-more not-want dizzy me very-much-so you? you? careful-warning cautious._

Hiccup only shrugs, mewling _sympathy_. His nose is too small to catch many scents – they know this – but Toothless does not understand how his little partner cannot smell _that_. He does not wish any of this sliding, stumbling _calling _on Hiccup…but he does wish, just for a moment, that they could share this out between them, and carry it together.

_Compassion_, Hiccup gazes up at him, blinking _love._ _You guard? _he asks. _I go you watch careful guard yes brave you love-you protect sure trust_.

_Always_, Toothless answers, not in sounds but in _sureness_. He paces a wide arc around Hiccup as his other half slinks into the clearing, ready always to leap away. He listens for _pfikingr _returning even if he cannot smell _anything _but that smoke. He watches among the trees for the movement of stumbling humans pushing branches aside. He paws at the cloth nests and snaps his fangs into furs to tug them away from trappers lying in ambush.

When the clearing is truly empty except for the dragon-pair sneaking into it while its humans are away, he digs in the shadow of the big stone. Hiccup bats the metal smoke thing out of the fire, claws ringing hollowly against it.

He prowls around the big stone, knocking sharp things away, as his Hiccup-self catches the smoke thing by a chain and drags it across the grass.

He stomps the smoke thing flat when Hiccup mock-pounces at it, smacking a paw against the earth and grunting _thud thud thud_ to match even as he flashes a dragon's smile at Toothless and invites _you too_!

Reeking ashes spill from it, and Hiccup sweeps them into the hole Toothless made, with the crushed metal thing and all the dug-up dirt besides.

And Toothless tears the earth beside the stone to shreds until he can ram his shoulder into it, and it tips over with a great slam, burying the burner forever.

_Good! _Toothless declares, waving his wings to blow the last of the calling scent away. He prances _proud me pleased us good yes clever us laughter spite gotcha us win us fierce us brave!_ as Hiccup chirrups and pounces a triumphant harmony between his paws.

* * *

With the calling scent fading, and the light as well, it is easier for Toothless to venture out into the forest again, hunting through the undergrowth for other traps to break. Many times, he draws breath to cry out greetings and warnings, but does not dare.

It will be a long time before _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ again challenge an enemy they do not know. Not blindly. Their brightest scars have achieved what a lifetime of swats and howls and scolding from their flock-mates has failed to do.

The shadow of the Knotted Man has, at last, blunted their recklessness.

But claws can be sharpened again.

Silence follows beside him, and Toothless does not like it. This is a good place, or should be. There are the tracks of small prey-beasts cutting through the undergrowth, trailing scent-marks and tufts of shedding fur. The trees grow tall and broad across hollows and hills, ready to shelter dragons, and the prey-beasts and predators that share their world, from the sky.

There was a tree just like this one once, on an island far from their home, that he and Hiccup had made a nest among once. A late spring snow flurry had fallen, and the dragon-pair had pressed close to the wide trunk, watching the snow fall wetly beyond its branches, and hardly at all through them. It had been like a cave they could see out of, that smelled of pine and warming loam.

There should be dragons here to perch on the lower, stronger tree branches. There should be scurrying sharp-toothed weasels to hunt the little mice that dart away beneath the rotting leaves. There should be birds screaming at each other over nests and seeds and the endless small bugs, and the bigger ones too; Toothless eyes a very large snake-bug with too many legs unhappily, and steps very carefully around it. He does not know what bird could eat _that_. Maybe a hawk.

But all the little predators of the northern forest are silent, a warning all their own.

Toothless rumbles _uncertain_, but the silent weight on his shoulders makes no reply. They have hunted before with wild screaming, diving upon their prey from above to scare running-beasts into a panic, driving the herd before them into the claws and jaws and flame of their flock-mates. They have plummeted into battles between dragons from above, howling _threat _and _battle-joy _and _fear me me big fierce!_ before tumbling away daring any pursuer to come after them and match their agility in the air.

Hunting traps is quiet, a hunt of sneaking very alertly, and Toothless keeps his ear-flaps up and his body low.

He skirts another open clearing, even though it is tempting to charge across it, running while he can. But he remembers the pit trap that took Spring Bounce Smile, piercing her belly and shredding her wings. He misses her still. She had loved to dance with them, prancing wildly with Hiccup scampering across her back and Toothless pawing at her nose, grinning her tongue dry.

With the clearing behind him, Toothless peers into the darkness of the forest's heart. A deep breath of heavy forest air, bosky and verdant, has cleared the last of the calling scent from his nose, but there is something off this way, further in –

_That_ – that is a dragon's scent. Its own scent is light and unfamiliar.

But its _fear _is dark and strong.

Snarling silently, Toothless hackles, glancing back at the little dragon perched between his shoulders. The instinct to turn and run, to take them both away from danger, is powerful. But they have never been able to leave a captured and frightened dragon-cousin behind. Hiccup does not need to utter a single sound to tell him so, nor does Toothless need to ask _what-now?_

He lifts his head and sings _looking _into the dim forest, past the outcroppings of chalky stone and the moss growing thick across them, and snarls _brave_ after the looking-sounds, very quietly.

_I go!_ Toothless postures, pawing _challenge _at the rich earth. The dragon somewhere here is not of their flock – they are too far from home; none of their kin-cousins wander this far – but _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _will find them anyway, and set them free.

* * *

She has given up wrenching at her bonds – her wing hurts where she pulled too hard and the healing wound bit into her again – but she does not like it. Her body is limp and helpless in the strange soft ground without a mushroom or a glow to be seen _anywhere_, but inside Edge is _raging_, screaming loud enough to bring down stones from the roof of the world. She wants to bite everything.

She will bite the trees that loom over her, and the jaw-holder keeping her fires and her fangs inside her mouth. If her tongue could burn, it would be a black scorched thing from how many times she has swallowed down her fires like fish bones. They sit in her belly, growling to be free too.

She will bite the burning thing that sat disregarded in a corner of the not-cave and wended its smoke into her dreams. She will bite the dark-pale long Creature – oh, she will _especially _bite the Creature, she will bite it _so much!_ – that tapped a paw just below her listless eye, and chuckled to itself when she did not snarl.

She will bite herself, too, when she is free of this net. She will absolutely bite the net. She does not understand _why _she did not fight, when the Creature unbound her paws. Why did she not run? Why had her body been so far away from her?

The Creature had pushed her to stand, and it had set another bond around her throat – she will bite that – with a stick on it. She will bite that stick. The creature had pushed her until she stumbled forward, and it had pushed her again when she caught herself; she can walk, in dreams.

It pushed her past the bulky dragons with their thick fangs dripping, their tails raised and their eyes blank, lying in the openings to their caves and barely watching her stagger past. Edge will bite them all, each in turn. She had scent-flared to them while she lay trapped, begging _help me need you distress distress distress! _and they had not listened. They had not even come to see what she was whimpering about, as if her scent-flares meant nothing.

The Creature had pushed her towards light blazing down from above, and Edge had stared up into it, lost. Howhad she come to the light from above again, staring up too high to understand? She had been there before, and now – oh, now! – she should turn back like the others had, returning to the real world where they belong.

Where she belongs.

Where she should be. Where she _wishes _she was still. She would be good. She would eat her scraps and be always On the Edge of Things and keep her head low, and she would not bite _anyone _there.

And then the Creature had wrapped a folding thing around her eyes – _she will bite it!_ – and pushed her to walk again.

When she woke from her dream, Edge was wrapped all about in a net – she has learned about nets now – and alone. Many trees stand over her, hissing like disappointed flock-mates and flashing their colors. She does not understand what they are saying to each other, but her ear-flaps go down anyway whenever she sees their greens turn and change. Layabout Hiss flashes greens at her when she sees Edge watching from a corner, listening with her ear-flaps perked and her heart yearning towards them, but her greens are the sick-making of rot and _unwelcome_.

She does not understand. The Creature has brought her here, but _why?_

Edge is no stranger to bullies. Avoiding them, in a world made of walls, has made her very clever and quick, and her fade is better than _anyone's_, as dearly as she longs to be seen. She knows that she should not show the Creature her fear; bullies lap fear from the ground like water.

But she does not understand the Creature's game, and so she does not know how to escape it, and she is very afraid.

And she cannot escape anywhere, even if the Creature has left her here alone, because _there is A NET!_

And then there is also a sound.

Edge knows that sound.

It is distant still, and the echoes are wrong in this strange world without a roof, but they are _looking_-sounds!

One of her flock is here!

A surge of relief, as wild as waterfalls, slams through her, and Edge thrashes against her bonds with new strength. Her flock has come for her! She was noticed – she was missed – she was wanted back, so much so that they have searched for her, and she is _sorry sorry sorry _she was mad at them! She will be glad to be in all the trouble she will be in forever, if her flock will only find her and set her free!

They will fly away from this terrible place and go home to the real world where there is always light in all its colors, soft and soothing, not the ceaseless changing of the too-wide sky. She will curl herself into any corner they leave her. She will not smear ashes across her own sides in pretending. It had never helped anyway. She is known, as all flock-mates are; she has no marks.

(The sky is not so bad; Edge had flown so _high_.)

But something in her, hidden but unbreakable, also bares its teeth in the snarl she cannot voice.

She had been _brave_. She had done something new. And now no one will remember that the little dragon On the Edge of Things had been the one to do it. Her flock will remember only the ones who followed after, and did it right, and were not caught. She will be pushed aside again.

The net bites into her wings, and Edge buries those griefs deep. She wants to be _out _more than she wants to be bold!

So she writhes and twists in the hated net, and she thrashes across the moist ground that smears across her white scales like marks. She pulls as hard as she can, and she scent-flares _here I am!_

Edge does not see the dragon at first. She expects white scales to match her own, or a _here I am _scent-flare in answer, whispering that a faded one is here.

And then a shadow takes form and stares at her, green eyes wide.

* * *

She –

_What is she?_

Toothless stares, frozen in shock, at the sleek white dragon lying trapped in a catching net, under the long shadow of a stone ridge. She – her scent is she-dragon – cannot be a real thing. She must be one of Hiccup's drawings sprung to life, stretching its wings and walking out of that stone there like this is a usual thing, yawning that anyone should recoil and hackle at it.

He has seen the shape of her face, almost, and the lines of her body, almost, so many times. He knows this shape.

She looks like him.

But that is impossible. There are no others like this half of him, and that is a true thing, and that is _fine _– it does not matter. He has always had Hiccup; he has never been alone.

She must be a stone thing; she is as white as the chalky limestone scattered through this forest, and just as still. She must be some strange statue-magic of humans, to cut a dragon from the stone and give it a scent, and to leave it here to stare back at him. Its shapers have even put it in a net already.

Well, it must be very easy, to capture a stone.

Maybe she is a warning. She is a made thing to frighten him like the dragon-shapes of wood and metal that ships carry sometimes. Those shapes stand very fiercely on the ships with their wings spread, and from far away in the sky it seems as if the ship is another's prey already.

But she blinks. Her eyes are blue, somewhere behind the darkness that floods over them as she stares at him as if he is a wonderous thing.

Stone does not move that way; stone can only fall. Stone does not turn its head a little way to follow him when he takes one baffled pace to the side. Stone does not slam its ear-flaps down _surprise _and _wary_, or turn them slightly towards him in _fascination_. Stone does not scrabble at the earth beneath its paws, scratching new tears into ground already torn-up and scattered. Stone does not wear its scales away beneath too-tight ropes. Stone does not smell of she-dragon, or of something entirely new.

She is an impossible thing. A mystery.

Mystery whines the _shock_ that Toothless has no breath yet to utter, and the sound snaps through the black dragon like lightning.

She is real!

She is so small – so different, and so much the same! Her scales are smoother, white as fresh midwinter snow, and she has fewer ear-flaps to frame her face. Her lines are softer, but they are the lines Toothless has seen all his life as he groomed messes away and licked his wounds. He has seen his own face in Hiccup's careful drawings. He knows every way his body moves, as he learned to dart and tumble and fly acrobatically, to never put a wingbeat wrong. And she is like him, this Mystery, but a dragon all herself!

Toothless stretches out a fascinated nose towards her, and Mystery pulls at the net wrapped around her, trying to reach to him. But binding straps cut between her eyes, a muzzle keeping her jaw shut, and she cannot move.

One Like Them, and she lives! The skin of the one they could not save is heavy on his shoulders.

_Distress no no bad that sorry you sorry I here I big help yes good you_, Toothless yips and signals, and leaps towards her to set her free –

The _ssssss-thunk!_ of an arrow, hissing past like death, stops him cold.

Toothless knows in his bones that if he had been only a moment faster, only the slightest bit more eager, the arrow would have gone straight into his throat. The bolt is buried in a tree beside him, but he can still feel the brush of its feathers across his scales.

_Trap!_

Something moves among the tree roots, as if the leaf-litter had come to life, and Toothless bares his fangs in a snarl, fire screaming in his throat. Unwilling to retreat and leave so-newfound, so-unbelievable Mystery helpless, but well-familiar with arrows, he crouches ready to leap. Whether at the _pfikingr _unfolding from his ambush, buried among the leaves and lurking so still, or away – he does not yet know.

Another dragon might have fled, but Toothless is truly the best of dragons that his Hiccup-_best-beloved_ believes him to be. Loyal and clever and brave and fierce, and fascinated by this new Mystery, Toothless stands his ground even in the face of a threat.

The hunter keeps the crossbow braced and pointed at Toothless, the sharp point never wavering as their enemy – everything about him says _enemy_, he is a hunter of dragons and already _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _hate him– rises to a crouch. The wind blows across him, ruffling his white fur, but Toothless cannot find his scent. He can only smell the forest floor the hunter hid among, as if he, and not Mystery, is the unreal thing.

But he can see the smile. Humans smile with their fangs showing, but no _pfikingr _smile was ever so much a threat to bite. The hunter rears tall and bares his throat and shows all his teeth, and he looks at Toothless with a wild, sharp-clawed hunger and empty eyes.

Mystery sees him out of the side of her eyes, and shrinks back to the earth with a whimper of _despair dread fear no no no fear no no_…

When the Starving Man speaks, it is not a roar. He does not scream. His voice is light and delighted and eager, as if he is happiest of all to be pointing arrows at one dragon while another lies bound before him. He chirrups and sighs and babbles, and this, more than any snarl, churns _fear-disgust _through Toothless' heart-fires.

Those soft sounds are only a gloss, like light on water. Underneath it, there are eels.

Poison waiting, and fangs to bite with, hidden among good things; he is a snake that swims, this Starving Man.

So many sounds, as Toothless stares back at him defiantly, refusing to show fear…

But then he says the sounds that mean _Toothless_.

Toothless does not believe it, and flinches back. Those cannot be _his_ sounds from the mouth of this eel-_pfikingr. _How can this Starving Man have bitten that away from him and taken it?

Humans make so many sounds, tripping all over each other because they do not listen and they do not see signals. This empty-eyed hunter all in black, like thin and treacherous ice over fast killing water, _cannot _have made those sounds to him. He cannot have made Toothless' own sounds as if he knew them, and the black dragon recoils as if a paw had reached through his scales and into his chest, setting its claws against his heart even as it beats.

It is a _wrongness_, and Toothless calls up his blasting-fire howling in his throat and boiling over his tongue, shuddering. He will burn the Starving Man away and set Mystery free and all the dragons he must protect will fly far away from here –

But the instant fire blazes in Toothless' jaws, the Starving Man moves. He drops his bow and it falls to his side; it is tied to him. And he strides immediately to Mystery, who cannot escape from him as he seizes her collar and pulls back hard.

He sets a bright blade to her throat.

And he barks out a command, his voice no longer light and amused.

Toothless does not understand many human words, but he understands voices perfectly. He understood their mother well enough, but that was long ago, and she signaled as dragons do. Even when _Uh strrrrTT _tried to speak to _(click)-phuh, _she rarely tried to teach _tt-th-ss_ as well. She does not understand them, that they are the same, but Toothless had expected nothing else; she is _pfikingr_, even if she is a _pfikingr _who flies and fights for them now.

He does not need to recognize the words. The signal is perfectly clear.

_Down, boy, or she dies!_

Mystery wails, breathless and frantic, muted behind the muzzle. Her paws thrash without purchase, and her tail-fins tremble helplessly; there is a stake driven deep into the stone ridge beside her, and her tail is bound to it. Toothless can see _desperation _in her eyes, fixed on him in trust and fear. Even with the Starving Man beside her, she does not take her eyes from him.

She is Like Them, and alive, and every instinct Toothless possesses screams at him to protect her as he would one of their own flock and more. For the first time since their lost mother, they have close-kin Like Them, and she is gasping and frightened under a hunter's hand –!

Toothless swallows down his fires, ashes curdling in his throat, and snaps his fangs away. _Her_, he signals, more for Mystery than for the Starving Man. _Her down no-hurt no-threat me quiet now _– _only-for-now_ – his eyes promise her without letting the Starving Man see – _done me no threat you her down_.

His body trembles _rage_, but he signals _down._

_Good, good_, says the Starving Man, nodding approval. Toothless knows that word. The Starving Man makes a _snap!-tch-tch _noise with his mouth, a signal.

Movement behind him, heavy paws crunching into the leaves and little sticks. But Toothless cannot run – he cannot fight – not with that blade against Mystery's throat and one death already riding on his shoulders – as two dragons, unfamiliar and heavy-set and clumsy in the forest, rise from their own hiding places. They crowd in on both sides of him, brushing their rough scales against Toothless' half-spread wings. Their long tusk-fangs drip, and their breath huffs _threat you want-to-hurt big us big you small_ over him.

Toothless locks his wings in tight, away from the strangers who have chosen to be enemies. Do they follow the Starving Man as their Alpha? Do they bow their heads and crouch to him? Why would they do that? Toothless wonders, baffled and furious.

Do they fear that he will eat them, if they do not obey?

Can they not hear that he is an eel?

It feels like surrender, even as he bristles back at them. Cornered by the long-fanged dragons, fighting the instinct to crouch low, Toothless feels as small as Mystery.

_Good very-much-so_, the Starving Man says in human words. His smile is an empty hole, his eyes a bright void in the gathering evening shadows, and his follower dragons raise their sharp-pointed tails to threaten Toothless _down you down submit down stay you beaten!_

The Starving Man takes a deep, delighted breath, and says a very smug _attention_, lifting his blade just a bit away from Mystery's throat.

And Hiccup pounces on him from the stone ridge above, bowling their enemy over into the leaves and the dirt with a dragon's roar.

* * *

_To be continued._


	7. Chapter 7

_**Freefall,**_** Part Seven**

"That's a tree!" Snotlout declares for the third time, snarling in outrage. Astrid knows exactly how he feels. She's just being a little less loud about it.

He points upwards like Astrid could have missed the bolt, wider around than her waist, embedded in one of the elaborate doors of the Great Hall. She can only be thankful it hadn't kept going. There were _people _in there. There still are. There are always people in the Great Hall, no matter the time of day, whether they're huddled around the ever-burning hearths working out the aches from a long haul on a fishing trawl or hiding from their parents.

There are usually dragons on the roof, but the usual crowd of basking Nightmares and gossiping Nadders and double-ogling Zipplebacks has fled the village, screaming loud enough to make the cliffs echo. _Can't really blame them_, Astrid thinks regretfully. She'd probably be upset if someone shot a bolt the size of a battle torch into her house, too.

Oh wait.

They did.

She's the Chief. The Great Hall is hers. It hasn't been for long, but already it's where she listens to the come-if-you-want village council, whenever they bother to show up, and patches up disputes between her people. It's where she sits through endless stories that would be a lot shorter if Berkians didn't believe in commentary, or in arguing with storyteller and commentators alike. It's where she holds the hands of old women tough as oak-gnarls, talking them down from working themselves into graves they've managed to dodge this long. It's where she smiles no matter _what _Hilda's put on a plate and shoved into her hands, beaming proudly, this time. It's where she carefully walks beside inquisitive Nightmares who have worked up the courage to come into the biggest human den of all, dishing out praise and gentle rebukes in turn as they knock over tables by accident and find out if they can bite tapestries. She sleeps there, sometimes, when she needs to.

And she's_ furious._

She's just not showing it.

Yet.

The door creaks ominously, groaning in pain. A spider's web of cracks spreads out from the wound – it's only wood, but Astrid can feel the tear in her gut – growing every time she looks at them too closely. She can't bear to look, but she must. War has come back to her doorstep, and she must face it.

"A _tree!_" Snotlout sputters again, fists clenched. He kicks the Great Hall steps, hard, and Astrid notes somewhere in the back of her mind that he doesn't hop away with his eyes crossed and his teeth clenched this time, and a good thing too. She needs all her dragonriders fighting fit, and Snotlout wouldn't be measurably improved in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the long staircase with his neck broken.

Most of the time. He has days when she'd be happy to push him herself. But fewer than he used to.

She wonders what he did to get far enough onto Gobber's good side – a narrow strip of land indeed, mostly occupied by Stoick – to persuade the smith to make him some iron-footed boots. It says something that Astrid would rather think about Snotlout doing favors for people than the problem in front of her, while her Vikings stare, exclaim, swear, yell, point, disbelieve it, and hurry away to spread the news.

Of course, that's nothing compared to the problem _behind _her, fouling up the waters around her entire island like someone's taken all their garbage and dumped it in her harbor. Which is sort of what Drago's hopefully-imaginary ghost and Dagur's stupid grudge and that sly hunter Grimmel have clubbed together and done.

The vengeful remnants of Drago's ironclad war fleet caught up with their advance party last night, sliding into Berk's waters without challenge. If Astrid's being honest with herself, inside her head where no one can hear her scream, she's not sure she has anything to challenge them _with. _

Their only hope against this army has always been to keep it far away from Berk and the people who call this island home. Stoick knew that. Astrid knew that. But here they are at last.

Already, she has let her people down.

If Drago was welcomed into one of the hells – if their goddess didn't simply banish him from her realm altogether – is he gloating now? Is the thought of his fleet firing tree-sized arrows at Berk keeping him warm amidst the ice that awaits the dishonored dead? Is he laughing at the girl who lied to him and defied him, who escaped his trap and saw him dead, and had the nerve to think that she'd won?

The failure sits in her heart like a stone, because there his ships are, cast around Berk like beaters.

Before dragons who could be praised and rewarded for bringing meat back to their human friends, Astrid had hunted wild boar. Too often, they couldn't afford to slaughter another of their much-harried sheep and the fish were being especially clever about dodging their nets.

"Never, _never_," their huntmaster Coenric had told her, dropping a spear into her too-small hands and letting her stagger, "hunt boar alone. They're nasty critters, ye'ken? Bigger than ye'll ever be, and wi' bigger teeth, and they'll fight ye for lookin' at 'em."

A proper boar hunt was an event the entire tribe got in on, when the fast-breeding pigs crowded themselves out of scavenging through Berk's deeper forests and moved in on the village's fields and crops, eating everything in their path. Coenric would round up the men and fighting women of the tribe, their blades sharp and their crossbar spears ready, telling those who remained to have the pits ready and their knives sharp, there'd be a feast tonight!

They'd crash through the forest all spread out in a line, each fighter within reach of another, sweeping across Berk in a human net. And sooner or later, they'd corner some raging boar or aggressive sow, which would turn on its pursuers and charge, trying to break through the line.

Astrid has been there holding a spear taller than two of her, its thick base dug into the earth as she fought to keep it from being wrenched from her hands. She can still smell the blood-hot breath of the thrashing, frothing boar skewered on it, fighting to get its tusks into her even as the crossbar held it at bay, piggy eyes blazing blind rage until they glazed over in death. She's seen the maddened creatures impale _themselves _on the spears.

That's the trick – and the terror – of a boar hunt. To stand steadfast, and let your prey destroy itself in its haste to kill you first.

Grimmel's beaters have her penned in, but Astrid has no intention of playing the boar.

And she much prefers Stormfly's hunting method, anyway. A swoop, a strike, a squeal, and done. Easy. She hasn't been clobbered by a spear that's slipped from her hands, or had to wipe pig spittle off her face, in _years_.

"Yes, I see it," she answers as calmly as she can, when Snotlout says "Huh?" to prompt her to join him. He doesn't need to; she's already there. "Let's hope they can't do that more than once, but until we find out, get some shields to the guys up there, all right?"

Shields won't stop a bolt that size, she knows, but maybe they'll make her lookouts feel a little safer. And what else can she do? Shrug and admit they're all doomed?

To the frozen hells with _that_ – Astrid will lie and stall and bluff until she comes up with a way to win this.

She's going to win this, she tells herself firmly.

She has to. Protecting her people is why she's _here_.

Saying none of this, Astrid takes a step back – and down – shading her eyes and staring up a very long way to the people peering over the Great Hall's roof and down at her. There had been plenty of room for them up there even alongside the perching dragons, and now they've got the whole expanse of it to themselves. "Everyone all right up there?" she shouts.

"It's so _high!_" Madge screams, and Astrid grins in sympathy. The girl had wrapped her arms around Astrid's chest in a death grip the moment Astrid had hoisted her up onto Stormfly's back. She'd buried her face in Astrid's cloak, and hadn't looked up – or possibly taken a breath – the entire flight.

"I know, Madge," Astrid calls up, as reassuringly as she can. "But you've got the best eyes in the village! I need you to spot where they're going to shoot next, remember?"

Madge is barely thirteen, but she can see a storm coming _hours _away, and Astrid has seen her sitting in the village's rough square with her baby brother, pointing out and identifying birds that most people can't even see. She was the first one to notice all Grimmel's reinforcements – like hell, that was the main fleet, the first ten were a decoy, and Astrid is furious with herself for falling for it – and to raise the alarm.

And for Madge's good work, Astrid has given her a task she hates.

She hadn't needed Stoick to tell her that being the chief wasn't going to be easy. After all, she'd grown up believing that she would lead her people deeper into an endless war. That war was her duty and her obligation and her purpose. And that she'd die fighting.

Even gods fall in battle, in the end. It seemed fine company to be in.

Now she has a future to live for, and underneath the calm face she's showing her people, Astrid is afraid for that future. Beneath Drago's dark fleet and Grimmel's too-bright smile, it feels like a very fragile thing.

"I said I would already! But you gotta promise to get rid of them fast, Chief, 'cause I don't like it!"

"I'll send someone up to take a turn in a few hours. Hold on tight until then," says Astrid. She can feel Madge's fear – and how brave she's being anyway – sink onto her shoulders like the redhaired girl herself is sitting there. She can't make that promise.

Madge and Snotlout and everyone on Berk expect her to do something about the enemy fleet encircling them in an iron ring, and Astrid has no idea what she's going to do.

Be _damned _if she lets Grimmel slink across her Berk on his mad hunt for her long-missing dragon friends; why doesn't she just open their harbor and invite all Drago's army and Dagur too in to push her people around and take whatever they want, while she's at it?

"We'll ketch 'er, Chief!" one of the Nokkvesson brothers calls down. Astrid kind of wishes they'd wear name collars like some of the dragons still do, because there are just too many of them, and they're as alike as a dozen loaves of bread.

Astrid yells back, "Don't drop her in the first place! You just keep watching those ships, Madge, and Snotlout's going to bring you lots of shields –" She pulls terrible faces at Snotlout, still standing next to her with his face locked in a scowl at the ships spread out just beyond the lighthouses, until he gets the hint and runs off towards Gobber's smithy and unofficial village armory. "– to keep you safe. Don't feed Fearsome."

To her relief, Madge giggles. "No chance, Chief."

She makes it into the village proper, skirting a haystack that's slipped off its cart and is now more of a hayslide for very small children to skid down and dodging a little boy who's doing just that, sledding down the street on a barrel lid behind a juvenile Gronkle. And then she hears a roar from the roof of the Great Hall.

"_Incoming!_" one of the Nokkvessons yells loud enough for the entire village to hear; well, that was the idea behind putting them up there with Madge in the first place. "_Northeast!_"

Astrid ducks, and looks up, and holds a leather-armored forearm over her head all at once, looking for the rock, praying it's not another weaponized tree – anyone hit by that will never know it, and it'll probably keep going –

And a frozen instant of memory surges over her like the tide, smashing her flat and hauling all the flotsam in its path along for the ride to pummel her in a narrowing gyre, as a blazing fireball arcs through the sky. And she's back there. It's the middle of the night with dragons roaring hunger and hatred, slashing out at her, their eyes glaring blankly, nothing more than beasts again.

Fresh as life and sour as death, she tastes both battle-rage and the thin, sick taste of exhaustion. She's so damned _tired_, why can't the dragons just leave them alone, and there's nothing for it, they'll just have to kill them all because that's the only way they'll ever _win_…

But no, those days are gone, and the blaze ball crashing down upon Berk was launched by humans who just can't leave them be.

The greatest part of the blaze ball – a lightweight missile of woven wood and untreated rope and kindling, soaked in oil and set alight – crashes against the cliffs behind the town, scorching the rock black. A miss, but it barely matters: shreds of still-burning leaves and twigs and scraps of fabric rain down over the village.

One flutters down just above her, falling to earth in the cascade of fresh, dry hay covering the street. The little fire catches, jumping onto all the new food with wild enthusiasm and a delighted howl.

"Fire here!" Astrid yells, running towards it, but she can hear other voices yelling the same. "Fire here!" She stamps at the burning stalks as the flames run from her, shouting "Get out of here!" at the little boy frozen, staring, his Gronkle's reins held tight in both fists. "Let her go, let her fly, go, go, go!"

The boy runs, and the Gronkle takes off up and away like her tail's on fire – it's not, thank all the gods, dragons don't burn but except for Nightmares and Typhoomerangs and such, they don't enjoy sitting in it – and that's one small victory for the day.

The heat roars against her face like a dragon's maw. She knows. She's stared down boiling death in the back of a dragon's throat, and lived to dream about it and wake to sheets damp with cold sweat. But she doesn't let those nightmares stop her as she fights to keep the fire off the wood.

They built in stone for so long that the earliest quarries on Berk look like natural, beautiful valleys now, the only evidence of human hands on them their sheer-cut sides. They lurk in the deep forest like pits. A couple of times a year, a sheep falls into one and dies, from the fall or hunting dragons. When Astrid was a little girl, someone had lost a child that way.

But since dragons stopped raiding, Berk's Vikings have been building. And they've gotten so _lazy_, Astrid curses. They've gotten so careless with all this flammable wood to play with now. All the work of the other night hasn't protected half of it. If she lets the fire spread, the covered sheepfolds on either side of her will go up like battle torches, and they'll lose half the village…

She scrapes hay away from the fire with her bare hands, and grinds burning stalks into the packed ground, and she yells until Ruffnut and Tuffnut charge around the corner with a barrel held over their head like they're practicing to be a horse. They dump the contents over Astrid and fire alike with a giant splash.

"Nice timing, guys. Please tell me that was only water," Astrid mutters, scraping sodden hair out of her eyes.

"Hey," Ruffnut objects, smirking, "We know how to set stuff on fire, okay? We can _do _fire. Don't tell Gobber."

"Deal. So, is that how you flooded your house a while back?" Astrid can't help but ask, grinding out an ember beneath her bootheel. She's always wondered.

"No, that was magic," Tuffnut says with absolute confidence. "Dibs on riding back to the well!"

Ruffnut jumps on her brother before he can crawl into the upturned barrel, dragging him away by his hair. "Oh no you don't! It's my turn!"

"It's my _idea!_ You push!"

* * *

It doesn't get better from there.

A morning of "Guess we'll hafta finish the job for you, chief! We kin do it!" wears away into an afternoon of grumbling and mutters of "Why di'n't ye tan their hides a li'l rawer, then?" Astrid feels every word like sand in her hair.

She glares out at the harbor and the ships there, thinking frantically. Their element of surprise is well and truly lost – Drago's men weren't anticipating Vikings on dragonback last time, but they've had almost a year to get used to the idea. Never mind the risk to their dragons: an archer with a good eye could knock _her _off Stormfly's back with a single arrow, aimed right, and then what? They're more powerful as a team, as dragon and rider, working together. If the ship's commanders are any good, they'll have fireproofed everything they can. It's what she would have done. It's what she just tried to do to Berk.

It's not like she's spent the winter thinking about this. Not like she's woken up from nightmares, too shaken to stir from her bed, and sat up until dawn working through everything that could have gone wrong that day, listening to Stormfly snore.

She knows that they only took Drago's flagship because the main part of his forces was busy elsewhere, and because the other ships of his fleet weren't talking to each other. Astrid is willing to bet they've patched that little break in their defenses, too. If she and her riders go after one ship, she's not staking the lives of her aerial assault squad on the others not coming to its defense.

But they've all lived under siege before, and no one wants to go back there. She hates that she's watching the sky with every step. She hates the thought that they'll be fending off blaze balls and watching over their shoulders for flying rocks – and for how long?

Until Grimmel gets what he wants from dragons who _aren't here?_ Until he believes her about that?

Until Dagur burns down all of Berk to get back at her?

Until Drago's ghost rises from the hells, trailing ice, to laugh over their ruins?

Everywhere she goes, fragments of stone grind under her boots from catapulted rocks. They're poor stone, no good for building with…but perfect for shattering on impact. Gothi has commandeered Gyda's house to dab cutbalm and smack bandages onto a whole cluster of Vikings who had been hit by flying shards. From the occasional unmanly shriek, "balm" is probably the wrong word.

Astrid has teams on fire patrol, more walking the shoreline, and everyone else guarding their new crop fields. Who knows how far those catapults can throw, or how many of the ships ringing the island have one? Her tribe can't afford to lose their harvest to fire from the sky, because Astrid remembers the last time that happened. The winter that followed had been brutal. Stoick had lit pyre after pyre, and the dragons hadn't raided because there was nothing to take. Not again. Astrid dreams of the best harvest Berk has had in _decades_, of grain to keep them all full through next winter.

That's where her people should be now. They should be yelling jokes at each other across the various furrows they dug out as the snow melted, not yelling warning of flying rocks and blaze balls. They should be wrangling about the weather, not standing at the edge of the sea cliffs in tight clusters, staring until one of those ships launches another volley at them. One of their bridges is nothing but cinders. That's going to be so much work to fix.

But they will, she tells herself firmly, be here to fix it.

Her Vikings should be searching for their children scampering away into the forest to build troll traps, not scouring the island for a dragon hunter who, Astrid suspects, knows exactly what he's doing.

If Grimmel can hunt a Night Fury – and somehow, she doesn't doubt his claim, as impossible as it seems now that she's met one – surely he can evade Berk's Vikings.

He could be here, laughing at her from behind her back, or setting snares in the high sea cave on the western shore. Have Hiccup and Toothless have ever been back there? Does it feel like home to them, since they stayed there in relative safety for a few weeks? Or would it feel like a prison, somewhere they were stuck against their will?

She wishes for the hundredth time that she could really talk to Hiccup, in more than just the gesture-and-guess-and-baby-talk pidgin they've worked out between them a bit at a time. She'd could ask him what he'd thought about that cave, and she could tell him how she'd felt in the cabin on Drago's flagship, that the captain of it had shoved her and her riders into with bad grace and a sneer.

But she never will, and she's not getting anywhere wondering about what could have been if her Wildfire friend had never become what he so utterly is.

"I don't want him here anyway," Astrid mutters to herself. She doesn't have time to worry about him, or Toothless, and he'd probably hate that she was trying to.

Why _would _they be here? Already, there are fewer dragons wandering the village. She hasn't had to prod Boo out of anyone's path all day, and the rolling Gronkle pile that follows the sun all through town is nowhere to be seen. It's not exactly _quiet_, but the missing warbles and cries and screeches of content dragons are a tangible absence, like a missing tooth.

As a distraction, she ropes Gobber into organizing Berk's fire brigade again, even if it means taking him away from his grindstone. "Anyone can do that, Gobber!" If anyone can shout them into order, he can. As promised, she doesn't volunteer the twins.

"Tha' pack of hellions who set fire to th' cells last autumn?"

"None other," Astrid grumbles. Oh, right. That was why she couldn't have just locked Dagur into one of those the last time he showed his face. Because then she'd have had to rescue him when the fire brigade got out of hand again, and right now, Astrid wouldn't lift a finger to save Dagur from anything. Not when he led Drago's former fleet right to their shores.

Wow, she hasn't seen that grin on Gobber's face in years. That's the "here are pots and pans, and here's an angry dragon!" grin. That's the "look at that stupid thing I saw you do" grin. That's the "everyone watch out" grin. That's the _evil_ grin.

At least someone's happy.

"What do they want?" a patrol's worth of Vikings demands as they circle back through the village. She's helping to test a duck bunker. The stocky little shelter – for ducking into for a moment's shelter; any duck that lands on Berk will be eaten – stays put even with a dozen Vikings trying to push it over and smash it.

"They're punishing us," Astrid answers, handing over duck bunker breaking to Snotlout and Fearsome. "We killed their leader. Or at least, they think we did. And they've come back for revenge."

"What do they _want?_" asks a group of women Astrid secretly thinks of as the Laundry Army. She's stumbled into their midst by accident while avoiding charging fire brigade recruits. All right, they're _fleeing _fire brigade recruits; Gobber is chasing them, and he's fast for a man with only one leg.

This time, she admits, "No. They're punishing me. And I won't give them what they want."

"What _do _they want, then?" asks Rorvik, one of Eret's men. Astrid's just trying to take a moment to pet Stormfly and tell her that everything's going to be all right. Stormfly burbles dispiritedly and bumps her nose against Astrid's hand.

She tells him about Grimmel wanting to hunt for Hiccup and Toothless here, knowing that everyone in earshot is eavesdropping shamelessly. Well, let them. Astrid's not afraid to be caught defending dragons, even though it hurts a little when Stormfly perks up and clucks inquisitively at the sound of their names. The Nadder at her back peers around Astrid, tipping her head from side to side as she tries to spot her wild friends.

"But they're not here. Uh. Are they?" Rorvik asks. The usually stone-faced former trapper looks more nervous about Night Fury and Wildfire being on Berk than about the ironclad ships throwing rocks at the village. Eret's crew ran afoul of Hiccup and Toothless not once but twice, and to a man, they've never gotten over that.

"No," Astrid reassures him. But she doesn't know him well enough to tell him how important it is that her strange friends always feel safe here. She could never welcome them back to somewhere that…_hunter_…had befouled just by walking through it.

There's no one she could explain it to but Stoick. He, of all people, would understand, and he had the right to know, just like any parent whose child she might have put in danger. He had taken her hands in his, and bowed his head over them, and said, simply, "Thank you, Astrid."

But she has less time to worry about Hiccup's father than she does to worry about Hiccup. Anyway, she's torn between being glad Stoick's not looking over her shoulder as she fails and wishing he was here to fix it.

But all she can do is the best she can, and she's going to do that as hard as possible until she breaks under it, or something bigger and nastier breaks her. And she'll still stand before her gods with her warrior's honor, her chief's honor, unstained for it.

* * *

Only a few bad days, and already Berk looks like the grim place Astrid grew up in, its teeth gritted and its head down, shoulders hunched for war. She's gotten used to seeing all the little houses lit up, their doors standing open, her people chatting and laughing with each other as evening draws in. Nearly two good years of dragons lolling in the streets and whistling to their friends for treats or attention, yawning and staring, pouncing at each other and taking off in fluttering bursts of bright color.

That Berk has vanished into the descending dark. Astrid ordered every candle-flame and oil lamp in the village to be put out, even though it crushed something inside her to do it. The sound of clanging metal still echoes up from Gobber's forge, as the indefatigable smith bangs away at whatever contraption he's got on his anvil this time.

At her back, the Great Hall blazes like a beacon, a burning brand against her spine. Firelight from the hearths within spills over the top of the stairs as Astrid keeps watch. She might be the most visible person on Berk right now, all the way out to the decks of the black fleet.

She's glad of it. Let them see her, defying all they've got. Let them take a shot at her, and she'll show them what she's got to bring to this party they're throwing.

It keeps her head high and her shoulders braced, reminding her that they're only a bit battered, not broken. Her people are still cheering their victories, rallying around each other and the simple comforts of a shared meal and hearth-fires high enough to walk into. The tangled roar of her entire tribe talking to each other all at once keeps her hoping, even with the half-wrecked shadow of the empty village at her feet.

Almost empty. She hasn't seen Stoick, and is willing to bet that he's still in his house with the shutters closed. A few flutters of movement betray a couple of dragons still brave enough to stay in the firing line, knocking over abandoned projects and scavenging for any scraps that might have been left out.

Stormfly is tucked into a corner of the Great Hall, her harness and saddle still on, and Fearsome's living up to Snotlout's claims that they never miss a fight. Barf and Belch are never very far from the twins – less out of loyalty, Astrid suspects, than for the constant entertainment the twins provide. Fishlegs' Gronkles are probably safe in their seaside cove. There are a few more dragons curled up with their human families in the Great Hall, sticking close to their people, and the Terrors are clinging to anyone who'll stand still long enough. But for the most part, Berk's dragons have scattered to less dangerous corners of the island.

Eret stumps up the stairs like they've done something to offend him, huffing with every step. "So _here's _where everyone went. Was starting to wonder."

"It's a tradition," Astrid says. "Something attacks us and we survive it, we celebrate together. Even if it's going to come back tomorrow. You all right?"

"Ship's seaworthy," he doesn't really answer. "What are you doin' out here, then?"

"Standing guard." Barring another tree-sized arrow, her people can relax for a while, safe behind the Great Hall's ancient timbers and solid stone. But Stoick wouldn't have let those ships go unwatched, so neither will Astrid.

She hears his retort coming before he says anything, as one eyebrow goes up and he looks down at her. "You're sitting down."

"Sit down yourself," she replies, amiably enough. "I need to talk to you."

The other eyebrow goes up. "Uh huh…" Eret says suspiciously. He glances into the Great Hall, practically shuffling away. "Actually, looks like all the dinner on this island is in there, and not for long if you've let Grayden at it, so maybe –"

Astrid rolls her eyes at him. "They'll save you a plate. They'd better save me one, too. C'mon, Eret."

The former dragon trapper sighs and slumps down on the edge of the stairs, and instantly jumps up again, stumbling over his feet and swearing as Turquoise sticks his head out from underneath Astrid's bear cloak and chitters at him.

"All hail the mighty dragon trapper, fearless and bold," Astrid deadpans, tapping her messenger Terror's nose _stop that_. She scratches under his chin and he gurgles _happy! _at her.

"I have never understood what you people see in those pesky things," Eret declares, but he sits down again. Astrid's half-tempted to reward him with one of the scraps of dried mutton she keeps in her pocket for Terrors.

Instead, she folds the letter she's been working on and waggles her fingers _come here_ at Turquoise. He climbs into her lap, writhing belly-up with excitement. "They're useful." Catching hold of a waving hindleg, she ties her message to him. "And they're kind of sweet. Silly as a drunk sheep, but they're clever little things in their own way."

Eret grunts. "Might know some people like that."

"Yeah. You and me both. And most of 'em are in there." Astrid jerks a thumb over her shoulder. "Right?" She fends off Turquoise as he tries to lick her face.

Astrid likes Terrors, although sometimes she doesn't know why. She suspects they're some god's joke on her specifically. But that's where she draws the line. "Down, boy," she commands, smacking two fingers down on the air. "No." He whines, but lets her check her knots in exchange for a mutton treat.

"What is it with you and blue dragons anyway?"

"Shut up," Astrid says amiably, "or I'll sic the Noisy Baby on you when she gets back." The Noisy Baby might, coincidentally, also be blue.

She clicks Turquoise to her forearm and stands up briefly, just long enough to toss him into the air and see him zip away like a stone from a sling. He knows where he's going – her messenger Terrors have run this route often – and he knows there are treats there.

_Keep your head down_, she repeats like it's a prayer. _Don't worry about us_. But she can't help thinking what she hadn't written: _Please don't _have_ to worry about us._

"So did you just want to show off that you can do that? 'Cause I meant it about Grayden eating everything. I swear I saw him gnawing on the hull once, and only maybe on a bet."

Resting her arms across her knees, Astrid looks sideways at Eret. There's always going to be tension between them, as they figure out where her authority of Chief of Berk ends and his as captain of his own ship and crew begins. She tries not to give him orders he probably won't follow, and he doesn't overrule her on her own ground. But this is most definitely her ground, and her problem to solve, and she needs Eret to work with her now.

"How are you doing?" she ventures.

"Eh? Hungry. Dead sick of hearing Denholm sing that work song about –" He cuts himself off. "Heh. Probably shouldn't say about what. Oh, wait. No, Astrid. Leave it alone."

"Can't."

Eret snorts, and his half-smile turns tight. If she had to describe the look on his face, she'd almost have to say _seasick._ Like the world's shifting beneath him, and he's got nowhere left to go.

"Sure. Fine," he says determinedly. "Not like everything I thought I'd gotten away from came back like they were gettin' paid good silver for my hide." He presses a fist against his heart so absently, Astrid bets he doesn't know he's doing it. "I know he's not out there, yeah, but gods _damn_, sure looks like it. You see that ship?" Eret points at a heavy-set craft with scarred sides, stable at anchor off to the west of the village, next over from the flagship where she'd met Grimmel.

"I know that one. Was on it, four years back or so. Won a bag of copper mix the size of both my fists together in a pebble game. Only cheated twice, and only 'cause he was at it worse. Loser's buddies chased me all the way across the deck, the whole crew baying for my blood, and threw me over the side. Barely missed that spar on her port on the way down – see it? Gods, that was some filthy water, and cold. Lost a good pair of boots trying to find someone who'd fish me out."

"I don't suppose you saw any weaknesses while you were there?" Astrid asks halfheartedly. "Gaping holes in the hull? A big, unguarded stockpile of Zippleback gas jars? The captain is secretly two kids in their father's cloak and a big helmet?"

"Hah. Should be so lucky. No. They're a mean lot, Astrid. Drago fed them on blood and sicced 'em on the world, and I don't know if they can stop."

She sighs. "Great. Just what I needed to hear."

They sit in silence for a few heartbeats, each caught up in their own thoughts. Astrid knows there's something off here – it's nagging at her like a sharp little pebble in her boot – but she can't put her finger on what. They're massively outnumbered, there must be enough men on those ships to storm across Berk like ants on sweetbread, and they're just sitting there. What has she missed?

"Did you ever meet a dragon hunter named Grimmel?" Astrid asks.

Eret's reaction makes Turquoise startling him look like a comedy routine for children and old women to guffaw at. His hands lock tight, the tendons in his arms standing out, and he takes a single sharp breath, held like he's about to be thrown into that cold ocean all over again. "Rorvik said you – dammit. It's really him out there?"

"He's commanding the lead ship. Well," Astrid corrects herself, "he says Dagur is, but Dagur – you've never met him, have you?"

"No."

"Dagur's an idiot," she growls. "He thinks he's in charge out there, but there's no way. I think Grimmel just put him out in front to catch arrows."

"Sounds about right."

Finally! Astrid's too tired to punch the air and whoop, but she thanks Ran for sending her a sailor from beyond the Archipelago. The little girl who'd read the _Book of Dragons _cover-to-cover before she was eleven still hates fighting blind. "So you do know him."

"You're sure he said _Grimmel_?"

"What, like I'm going to change my story now? I'm sure." Eret's grimace deepens, and he looks away. "White hair, tall, pale, long face, kind of spidery hands. Talks like he's oh-so-polite, but I bet he'd cut my throat and like it. And he says he's killed Night Furies. How many dragon hunters like that can there be?" _Please, gods, not more than one, and you can take this one back while you add them up_, Astrid flings out there, just in case someone's listening.

"Do you know him? Eret, you know more about how Drago's army worked, who his allies were, than any of us. Anything you can tell me might make a difference – you know that _Book of Dragons _Fishlegs is always working on?"

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Can't miss it."

"You seen the old one?"

Eret doesn't quite manage a smile. "No, but I've heard Fishlegs complaining about it no end. I think he's hidden every copy. Little bantam rooster when he's found a mistake, that one. You people knew nothing about dragons, did you?"

Rolling her eyes is probably not chiefly. Astrid does it anyway. "That's…kind of my point. Give me somewhere to start, Eret, even if it's mostly wrong. And I'm pretty sure Fishlegs is bigger than you."

"Yeah, maybe sideways."

"Hey." But that expression is no longer anything like a smile. It does nothing to cover the strain in the set of his jaw and how tightly he's folded his arms over his chest, or how much he looks like he wants to jump up and run. The ashen tint to his face has never really left; it's just shifted to mildly green. There's a smear of soot across one shoulder from the fires, mixed in with sawdust from his ship, both ground into the dyed-dark sheepskin that's replaced his own, shaggier furs lately. "Are you going to tell me what you know, or am I going to have to go ask your crew?"

"Gods, no," Eret blurts out straightaway. Astrid feels briefly, slightly guilty. She knows he'll do anything to protect them, even from so small a threat as her questions.

"It's just, I thought Grimmel the Grisly was a myth. Didn't think he was, you know…real. You got any _more _legends going to show themselves? The north, I swear – whole damned ocean and everyone in it…"

He sighs, and admits, "I've heard of him. A dragon hunter, yeah, but he's like those ancient warriors that you guys tell stories about all winter. No one could fight that many enemies and drink that much ale at the same time, or fall into an ice crevasse and fly out on the backs of seven eagles, or trick a giant by wearing a veil over his head."

"This from a man who'd have me believe that there's a spot in the ocean where there were so many bubbles, you not only walked across it, but danced with a seal woman."

"Had you going there for a while, though."

Astrid sneers at him. "No, you didn't. You're still going to have to work on it if you're going to challenge Gobber for biggest lie this summer."

Eret looks anywhere but at her, which, strangely enough, makes her believe him more, since Eret can tell some truly amazing lies with a straight face while he looks someone in the eye and smiles. Shuffling one foot uncertainly, he goes on, "The things I heard about him…he's the dragon hunter none of us were ever going to be. He can hunt anything, and he always gets his prey, and he never misses a shot. Hadn't heard the one about the Night Furies, but if anyone can say they did that, I'd believe it of Grimmel the Grisly. They say – and this is all tavern talk, mind. Ship gossip."

"I'll take it."

"– they say he's smart, and he's slippery. All the glory in the world, if he wanted it, but all he wants is the hunt. That he's killed so many dragons, even Drago respected him."

"I don't think Drago respected anyone," Astrid denies.

"Nah, me neither. Maybe not so much respected, as 'didn't hate quite as much'. Drago's people, when I hadn't brought in my quota, they'd sneer at me and say I was useless, that one of these days they'd get Grimmel Dragonsbane back and he'd put all of us out of work all on his own."

"So, him and his crew…"

"No, that's the thing. I've never heard of Grimmel the Grisly working with anyone. I mean, even Viggo –"

"Who?"

"Guy I knew, years ago. Didn't like him, hopefully a dragon ate him and his thug brother – point is, he kept plenty of people around to do the hard work while he tapped his fingers together. Catch Viggo mucking out a dragon cage. I never heard anyone say that they'd worked for Grimmel, and out there, trappers like…"

"Like you, Eret," Astrid prompts, her face calm, even if _quota _has left a bad taste in her mouth. "It's all right."

He snorts. "I was going to say, like my whole clan. Don't give me that look, Astrid."

"What look?" She genuinely doesn't know.

"Like you're sorry for me 'cause I didn't go back to them. Don't bother. Me and mine, we're better off here. Gave 'em the chance to go back and keep working, they said they'd rather stay with me. But most trappers aren't like that," he goes on. "They change ranges, go looking for better pay and easier work, jump ship when someone like Ryker starts hitting 'em for not wanting to get bit sometimes. Either Grimmel's got a crew as true as mine – if he's real –"

"He's real."

"Or he doesn't work with a crew at all. If he's even half as good as rumor has it, and he does it all alone… Look, I'd be dead fourscore times over if I didn't have my guys watching my back. Grimmel's either incredibly lucky, or incredibly good."

"He was in absolute control out there," Astrid admits, propping her arms on her knees and glaring down at the ships she can see. _They've _got their lanterns and braziers lit up like Yule, and it feels like a taunt.

Behind her, the shattered door of the Great Hall creaks, spilling firelight across the stones as the wind pushes it back on its hinges.

"He set me up and knocked me down like a skittle. I'll get him for that. You watch. He knew exactly what I was going to do, and I walked right into it."

Her next breath feels cold enough to freeze her teeth as it hisses down her throat. "I can't afford to do that again."

* * *

"What's going on, Fishlegs?" Astrid hisses for the fourth time, early the next morning. Under any other circumstances, she'd dig her heels in and hold her head high, refusing to move until whichever of her Vikings stopped stringing her along and confessed what sort of mess they'd gotten themselves into.

But she trusts Fishlegs. The girl she was only a few years ago would have sneered at him for being gentle, someone who'd rather study dragons than fight them, even though she'd fought beside him in the training ring and during raids. She'd known that he could hold his ground with any of Berk's more enthusiastic warriors. But he was never the first to the fight, back when she kept track of things like that. Even then, she'd noticed that he'd rather patch up what the dragons destroyed than drive them away.

He's found a new sort of confidence, recently. He faced down Drago beside her, and the heartbreak of Drago's broken beasts in chains – and Stoick, too, when Stoick found that Fishlegs had drawn Stoick's son into the _Book of Dragons_ as a dragon. He'd given Hiccup the name _Wildfire_, right along Toothless' _Night Fury, _and he'd told Astrid quietly that if Hiccup could face down the world and be so fully what he was, in defiance of everything, maybe Fishlegs could stand up for himself and do things his way too.

Snotlout's former gang doesn't even try going after him anymore. He'd laughed in their faces, the last time, and they'd slunk off like kicked dogs, clearly baffled. He's become one of the people that Astrid trusts to tell her the truth and listen when she wonders about things.

If they're building a new world, even if the world seems to hate them for it, she needs people who think in new ways by her side. And if there's room enough on Berk for dragons, surely there's room for scholars as well. Gods know they could use more wise men and fewer fools.

The glance Fishlegs casts back over his shoulder is agonized and urgent. There's a lot of him to tremble, whether it's excitement or fear; it's a good thing Astrid doesn't get seasick. Fishlegs holds a finger to his lips, and whispers, "C'mon! It's important, Astrid, come quick!"

He clatters down the staircase hewn into the rock long ago with the ease of familiarity, descending to the protected harbor where he spends so much of his free time these days. Astrid follows somewhat more carefully, stepping over the small drifts of wet sand Fishlegs must have left on his way up.

"I could be there a lot faster," she whisper-shouts down at him, keeping one hand on the rock walls that rear above her like a tunnel, "if you'd let me bring Stormfly –"

"No!" Fishlegs cries, stopping short. He turns to face her, his face crumpling. Fear, then. Just her luck. "No, you can't, Astrid, you have to keep her away. It's bad, and it'll just upset her, and…" Perhaps sensing the _so tell me what's going on_ Astrid is heartbeats away from snarling at him, he vanishes behind a curve in the deep-dug stairs, leaving her with no choice but to follow.

Oh, she _could_ turn around and go back to the village and glare at Grimmel's ships some more. But she doesn't. She can tell the difference between the dread on Fishlegs' face now compared to one of his Gronkles being off her feed last month.

She's so tired, and she picks her way down the stairs with a deep awareness of how slow her brain is running, how much she wants to go back to bed and finally get some sleep. The edges of her vision are grey. Damn that sneaky bastard Grimmel anyway for making her run all day and then making her sit up all night, waiting for the crash of stone or the scream of a blaze ball overhead. She's out of practice going without sleep, or maybe the burden weighs heavier on her now that she's not just another warrior in defense of her village.

Now she's in charge, so now it's her fault if she doesn't fix this.

Except that the ships really had stopped their barrage once the sun went down, and she'd waited up all night for nothing.

So she's slightly fuzzy as she follows Fishlegs down the last few steps, past the sign for _Gronkle Cove_ painted on the rock wall next to a blobby shape that's probably supposed to be a Gronkle – she's _so _going to take the twins' paints away – and out into the protected bay he's commandeered as his.

By true summer, this place will be overrun with kids plunging into the little lagoon from the cliff top. Everyone on Berk has done that at least once, and some of them even escaped without hurting themselves. It's a long fall and a hard landing, but it's a rush, and the bragging rights for a good dive are excellent. Astrid doubts the tradition is going away anytime soon.

A long arm of stone blocks the strongest sea waves from hitting the shore, creating that deep lagoon, and the sand is so clean, Astrid suspects that Fishlegs rakes it daily. She knows he's lugged several sacks of limestone powder down here, swept up from their current quarry and strewn across the sand to dry it out. All the rocks that usually lurk beneath Berk's beaches have been dug up and doubtless fed to his Gronkle horde, which have colonized the former Berserker ship drawn up into the shelter of the cliffs.

The ship lies on its side with its mast buried in the sand, spars broken. Its deck has been emptied and scrubbed as clean as it's ever going to get. Barnacles, long-dead but still wickedly sharp to the touch, still dot the upturned hull, and its keel and sides bear the scratches of dragon claws.

Fishlegs has removed the hatch to the hold in the ship's belly, and nailed up a heavy tarp to replace it. From previous visits, Astrid knows that Fishlegs has stitched scrap metal nuggets into the bottom of this makeshift curtain, holding it in place against the winds that sneak around the protective ridge that turns this bit of shore into a lagoon. But it's light enough for his Gronkles to nudge away as they hover in and out of their den.

The tide is receding, leaving a long strip of wet sand. And Astrid's reflexive question of "So are there eggs yet?" – if she doesn't ask, Fishlegs will still tell her, better to get it over with – dies in her throat at the sight she's been brought here to see.

Sodden and lifeless, a Nadder's body lies in the muddy sand with one of its wings crumpled beneath it. It's a little thing, for a Nadder, with lovely light purple scales, broken now by a handful of arrows. Broad, fresh gashes tear across its ankles and chest, and thin stripes, washed bloodless, have been cut through its muzzle. A single shaft protrudes from one half-open, dull gold eye.

"What –" Astrid says breathlessly, understanding now why Fishlegs had been so insistent that she lock Stormfly in her house and tell her to stay.

"He washed up this morning," Fishlegs says. He droops like he's wilting. "I didn't know what he was, at first. It was so dark still, I thought he was just a clump of seaweed or some driftwood or something, because he wasn't the right shape to be a rowboat, and anyway Horrorcow would have screamed if she thought a stranger was anywhere near her nest –"

This brings them both to the Nadder's side, and Astrid drops to one knee in the wet sand beside it. She has to let go of her bear cloak to pry one of the arrows from his throat. How long has she been gripping it, trying to wrap it closer around her for warmth, like she could hide inside it and not see this little cousin of Stormfly's dead at the hands of their enemies?

The fletching is odd, spiraling around the arrow's shaft in a way she's never seen before. But her fingers brush over something else, and she leaves the arrow in place in favor of pulling on a thin length of leather cord, wrapped around the dragon's neck.

A rusting plate swings from it, pockmarked with wear and cheap pot metal to begin with.

"'Shorty'," Astrid reads, her throat locking closed. This is no wild dragon. This is someone's friend. Someone who cared enough about him to pay Trader Johann that little bit extra to engrave the name they'd chosen for a friend who couldn't speak to them, so that everyone in the village would call him by the same name. Because dragons can learn their names, and understand that you mean _them_. That you are talking to them. That you are trying – however clumsily – to communicate. To be their friend. To be a _person _to them.

Fishlegs says, his voice stricken, "I didn't see that."

"It's fine," says Astrid, and doesn't even care that it's so obviously a lie.

She wrenches the arrow out of Shorty's body and looks fixedly at the point. It's clever work, she notices with the part of her mind that's always focused, that isn't roaring with rage and screaming for vengeance. Four edges, as if someone had forged two arrowheads together, rather than the flat two that Gobber can pound out a hundred of in a day, or the dip point that there's a knack to making, dipping fire-hardened wooden arrows into molten iron and drawing it out straight. The edges look wickedly sharp, and they gleam with a coating that Astrid doesn't like.

_You're not interested in poisons, are you, Chief of Berk? A shame…_

Even as her stomach turns, Astrid raises the arrow to her nose and takes a breath. Beneath the hot-iron stink of dragon blood – cold now – there's something else, something nasty and rotten.

Oh, _now _this is personal. The arrow's shaft snaps in her hands like a broken promise.

Stop_. But Hiccup, we're not the only humans out there._

"This is a warning," she says, and marvels that her voice is so steady. Oh, she's mad. She's _so _mad. There's a roar building in her stomach that's going to find its voice soon enough. But Fishlegs is innocent in this, and she won't use it up on a man who looks like he might cry.

She's glad he'll weep for Shorty. She doesn't have the time.

"How did he just wash up here?" she asks, more thinking aloud than asking Fishlegs. "You didn't hear anyone last night? Horrorcow didn't, either?" Horrorcow must be his breeding Gronkle: he's been talking about the chance of tiny Gronkle hatchlings since the sun came back, but there are several female Gronkles in his horde, and Astrid can never keep track of them all.

Shorty's name tag gleams back at her in the rising sun.

"No, I –" Fishlegs' voice breaks. "I don't think they put him here. I think they just left him in the ocean."

Astrid looks down at the little Nadder at her feet, and she thinks of boar hunts. Of nets. Of a cage door, slamming closed.

She thinks about dragons.

And she thinks about islands.

And she throws down the arrow and runs.

* * *

She remembers to stop the first person she runs into – only a quick hop-skip keeps her from running over them, as she dashes through the village – and send them down to Gronkle Cove to help Fishlegs with poor Shorty. But there's nothing else between the foot of the stairs and throwing her arms around Stormfly in a desperate hug in the dimness of her own house. The fire's gone out _again_, she knew she'd forgotten something last night.

Stormfly rustles _strrrrtt! _at her, shuffling in concern and clicking rebukes for leaving her, and Astrid gulps back the burgeoning roar.

"Come on, best girl," she manages, beckoning the blue-dappled dragon out into the morning and checking her saddle and safety straps reflexively. It only took one near-miss, when Stormfly had veered left in a dive but saddle and rider had continued going right, to burn that habit into her bones.

Astrid says, "Take me up," and holds on tightly as Stormfly spirals her way into the sky and hovers above Berk.

The wind is high and the tide is changing, both serving to kick up plenty of waves, but the black ships sit there unmoving, unmoved. Waiting.

And is that the teeth in the boar-beaters' trap?

_No one out._

Not even the dragons.

Astrid taps Stormfly back down to earth with ice in place of blood, her hands cold on her riding straps as she unclips herself and stumbles down. She pets Stormfly unconvincingly, and says "Shhhh, shhhh…" when this fails to quiet her friend's cries.

"Is that why so many of them?" she whispers to Stormfly. "Not to break us down? To keep us in?"

If any dragon who tries to leave will be shot down, how in all the hells is she supposed to ground every dragon on Berk? She can't protect them. Even if they'd stayed in the village to be told, most of them don't listen to her past "Stop that!" and "Good girl," and "Come here, I have food," and there are still plenty of wild ones prowling around in their forest. They stay away from the village now, but they're there. Astrid's seen them in the woods, darting between the trees and racing off into the air.

When they realize their fellows are being killed, will they go on the attack? They're as loyal to each other as any Viking to her neighbor, which is to say that of course they argue and feud and sulk, especially when they're neighbors. But they have friends, too. Astrid's watched the village dragons pounce at each other and play, seeking out dragons they particularly like to curl up with and fly beside. They show off for each other. They protect each other. They care.

She's seen that in so many dragons in the past couple of years. Not just in Hiccup and Toothless, who utterly, purely love each other, so unabashedly that even the angry young warrior she once was could see that and wonder. Who are at least well out of this, she realizes, grasping for something, _anything_, to make this better.

They won't come near Berk with all these scary human warships around.

It's a small mercy, and a bitter one. _Take that, Grimmel, and get lost!_

They're not hers to hover over and look after, day to day, but she wants to think of Hiccup and his Night Fury twin as part of her tribe. Friends, in a way, who she cares about – but who she trusts to look after each other, as hard as it is to let go.

She can't imagine how Stoick does it, even as she knows he didn't have a choice.

Astrid hides her face against Stormfly's scales not caring who sees her do it. The Nadder fans her wings anxiously, tangling Astrid's hair, as a new nightmare takes hold, and it's a big one.

The fleet has them boxed in, even the dragons – and how is she supposed to feed every dragon on Berk?

Maybe she could sustain her people for a time on the supplies they have, but her Vikings mostly live off the sea. Their crops aren't grown yet, and if they eat the seeds, they won't have grain next year. No bread, no mash, no beer – she will have a _riot _on her hands if there's no beer. She has to think about _next year _as if this year is survivable. Stoick would.

She cannot feed an island's worth of dragons.

Berk relies on its dragons to hunt for themselves. Yes, it's a show watching Snotlout feed Fearsome by hand with his audience of hangers-on, and people waiting to see Snotlout get bitten, gasping every time the giant Monstrous Nightmare snaps at another fish. Anyone else standing between Fearsome and a pile of fish would end up mauled just by accident; even Astrid wouldn't want to try that.

But nobody thinks that the fish Snotlout gives him are all that Fearsome eats. Astrid has seen him soaring over the waves intently, slapping fish from the water with a scooping wing-claw, cutting back and forth until his belly visibly bloats. Fearsome brought home a giant shark once, and no one dared tell him to get down from one of the battle torches and shred his stinking prey somewhere else.

They found scraps of sharkskin in weird corners of the village for weeks. Snotlout had made a scabbard out of the biggest piece, boasting proudly of what a fierce hunter his dragon was and what a great team they made, never mind that he hadn't had a thing to do with it.

If Berk's Vikings can't sail away to fish, they'll be in trouble.

If Berk's dragons can't fly away to hunt, they'll starve.

Astrid needs to break that blockade.

Preferably before anyone has to eat the lutefisk.

* * *

_To be continued._


	8. Chapter 8

_**Freefall, **_**Part Eight**

Fallen sticks snap like bones beneath dragon and dragon-hunter as they tumble, but Hiccup knows how to fall and how to roll.

He knows how to knock his enemies from their feet even when they are bigger than him. He has played and fought all his life beneath the paws of dragons who could swat him aside with a blow. He has picked himself up from such strikes, undaunted, and leapt back upon whatever momentary rival has batted him away.

The hunter twists and grunts breathlessly as Hiccup slams his weight into the slinking, sneering man's narrow gut. In his dragon's soul, he knows that a foe downed is half-beaten already – he will not let this _enemy _find his feet again. He slashes his claws against black leather, clawing at pale eyes barely hidden behind his foe's raised forepaws.

The cold, choking sick-taste of terror still has its teeth in his throat, from seeing an arrow cut so close to Toothless. There was a scream there that beat its wings to escape, and Hiccup screams that _fury _now as he fights for those Like Him, second-self and newfound stranger alike.

Of course the human fights back, lashing out and striking with his paws balled tight, struggling to stand and failing just yet. The little dragon has ambushed him like a prey-beast, and for a heartbeat – just one, but Hiccup will snatch that beat with both paws and his teeth as well and gulp it down – he has been surprised.

The hunter is a stranger and an enemy and a setter of traps, and he does not know _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_. He does not know to be wary, if he can see one but not the other.

Better so, and Hiccup's hunting scream howls upward into _triumph_ even as he knows this fight is far from won. The heavy knife that threatened the white dragon so Like Them flashes in the side of his eye, and Hiccup recoils, leaping away.

In a flurry of blows and snarls and the fading light, they wrestle for the knife. Hiccup rolls beneath its slice, kicking out into the hunter's stomach as the man twists and stands again, ripping at a briefly exposed wrist until the knife as falters in his enemy's paw. It drops as he snarls _revulsion _– hurting thing, threatening thing!

Little thief that he is, Hiccup would never take it for his own. He would see it always at the throat of the dragon Like Them, and taste the sharp-biting scent of the hunter, even dulled by the dead leaves of his ambush-nest. Instead he snatches it from the earth, flinging it away as if the hilt burnt his paws like a coal and howling _spite _– let the hunter hunt for _that!_

Behind him, he can hear Toothless roaring, shrieking threats to match, _you danger enemy you I brave fierce big look me fierce I bite! I bite! back-away you you-too!_ Battle-fire screams in his throat and his claws scream across dragon-scales. Blasting-fire blazes past Hiccup unerringly, and the hunter ducks away from it, forelegs raised, his hindlegs slipping beneath him.

Hiccup does not stay to mock. He turns his back on their enemy knowing Toothless will protect him, and runs.

_He _knows how to move in heavy forests, even as splashed-away fires begin to smolder within them. _He _can slip under waving branches and spring over uprooted stones, even if his back aches from striking them. Let them all only live to click _sympathy _for the bruise, and he will be glad for it.

The white dragon Like Them stares _confusion-fear _at him as he skids to a halt at her side. Hiccup whines _reassurance_, ducking his head low beneath his hood to nudge his nose against her scales in greeting.

He does not need the hunter's knife. The one strapped to his foreleg has always served him well. With it, he can saw through the muzzle keeping her jaw shut tight, slicing at the leather straps and whimpering a breathless _sorry! sorry!_ when his sharp-claw blade glances off her scales.

_Stop-that!_ he growls, rapping the grip of his blade against her nose as she tosses it, writhing. _You still you hush still now! _and she freezes, slim shoulders hunching, so he may cut her free without cutting her.

A growling, rumbling roar he does not know must be the two rough-scaled, heavy-set dragons hemming in his Toothless-_beloved_, and even as he works to set the dragon Like Them free, Hiccup _must _glance over his shoulder, pushing the side of his hood aside with a hastily-raised paw. It hides him in the shadows of the forest, makes him a black dragon even _more_ so, but it closes in what he can see.

Toothless leaps as high as he can in the close forest, springing to the back of a long-fang enemy and over it, so that the one treads only upon his flock-mate as he tries to pursue. Their tails dart out like stabbing claws, quick as a snake's strike, and Toothless retreats, watching those spikes warily. Backing away with his tail waving _hunt-pounce_ but his fangs bared _battle_, Toothless snarls _invitation_, daring them _come-catch-me_, pawing at the earth _come-try-me!_

And they do: they turn as one and charge for the black dragon, trampling everything in their path with their tusks scything to kill, tails darting over their lowered heads. Toothless blazes fire into their half-shut eyes, and screams _looking_-sounds loud enough for even Hiccup to hear, scratching at the edges of his hearing. He dives between their tusks and sinks his fangs into a questing nose, shaking his head hard like tearing away meat, and –

Another strap on the muzzle snaps in two, and Hiccup wrenches it away from her nose just as he spots movement in the corner of his eye, tall and stumbling and awkward, _pfikingr _always so clumsy on only their hindlegs –

And fire blasts over his shoulder as Hiccup ducks against her throat, protecting her as she protects him.

Her blue eyes blaze _rage _as hot and hungry as the heart-fire of the world, bright as the pitiless sky, and she snaps out her fangs as sharp as Toothless' with a sound that jolts through Hiccup's heart with the soul-deepest _recognition_ –

She _is_, she is like them, she _truly is Like Them!_

The little white dragon takes a breath, and she _screams_.

She screams as if the sound has been living in her throat fighting to escape. As if she might tear down the world and all her foes with only the sound of it. As if she might strike down the hunter who bound her and set her as bait in a trap and flay him open with her voice alone.

Beyond the long-fang dragons-not-cousins – they are attacking Toothless, they are _enemies_, and no kin of theirs – Toothless roars answer in his deeper voice, roaring _challenge_ without fear to their foes and urging her _courage_ and singing _hope _to Hiccup, who howls back to him in perfect harmony.

_Now_ they fight together! Now two-who-are-one have _another_ to fight beside them!

Behind him, the hunter yowls as if scolding, his paws crunching through broken twigs and fallen leaves and kicking aside small stones.

Hiccup cannot watch him, not with the cruel stripes of a catching-net binding the one Like Them still helpless. Not with Toothless fighting off two enemies to keep them from his other self as Hiccup works.

He must trust the one Like Them to fight for him, even as he fights the trap for her. They must protect each other – and that is as it should be, _they are kin!_

But he cut Toothless free from a net like this once before, and then they flew away safe and together and free even though there was a terrible thing behind them. Hiccup holds that memory before him like the sun to light his way.

He saws through binding ropes and slices through the edges of knots where the rope has grown weak with her pulling at it, and he hums praise for her with every cut. He taps his claws against her _friendly_ to tell her he is fighting still, even as she froths and spits _rage hate no no bad-worst you _at the man advancing with an arrow ready to bite into her –

– and she surges against the ropes, newly-freed forepaws scrabbling in the torn-up earth, and she flames at him so hard Hiccup can feel her belly swell and empty, the heat of her heart-fires warm against his scales.

The hunter stumbles backwards, the string and the shaft of his bow all alight, dropping it and treading on it with a snapped-out sound like a gull's shriek. Hiccup sees this as he peers over her still-bound wings, and he warbles _laughter._

Small stray fires flicker and snap, chewing on the dead leaves and new plants and detritus of the forest floor, the crackle of them a sharp scent. Trees tear from their roots like shattered bones as heavy dragon bodies slam into them. Hiccup hears long-fang enemies snarling and scales ripping, and knows that Toothless is still fighting for them all.

Hiccup's deepest instincts scream at him to race to his dragon-love's side and fight beside him, to lash his own claws across the eyes and soft noses and open jaws of the ones who _dare _threaten _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, to throw himself into Toothless' harness and feel great wings open beneath him. They could be up and into the darkening sky together and away. In the sky _no one _can catch them.

But the work of all his days holds him at _her_ side until she too can fly free.

This dragon, Like Them and yet not. Their own kin, at last – he would never, never leave her trapped here, and Hiccup sets his empty paw against her side, claws scratching lightly. _Here_, he promises, bowing his head beneath his lowered hood. _Here-with-you yes me here yes us together us here brave_.

She turns her head back to look at him, head tipped to one side _bafflement_, and Hiccup whistles _praise good you good very-much-so brave you yes yes good you hello you me like!_

Her ear-flaps go back as if she cringes, but they creep upwards, and an uncertain smile blooms in her blue eyes.

Hiccup smiles back at her, tongue flashing and no teeth to bite, and slices the net from her wings.

_Tt-th-ss!_ he rattles, whistling _here need-you urgent attention very-much so!_ He yowls the _fear _he has swallowed down to work amidst a battle while a hunter stalks them, and he sings out blazing _rage this enemy-here away get-away danger-warning go go go!_

Not for a moment does he believe Toothless will leave him, nor does he ask his heart-self to. But the net is crumbling around her, this stranger-friend Like Them, and she stretches out her wings with a shriek of pure bright _relief-disbelief-joy!_

As he ducks beneath her waving wings, Hiccup slices open the last of the net holding her hindlegs, and she surges upwards in a great leap –

And comes crashing down.

She writhes, screaming and coiling back upon herself. Only a lifetime spent beneath the paws of dragons keeps Hiccup from her claws as he dances away, quick as a fleeing fish. He slips his sharp-claw blade back into its sheath along his foreleg even as he scrambles for the thin safety of the stone ridge casting its long late-evening shadow over them all, rough stone beneath his gauntlets as he darts to a safer height.

He thinks nothing worse of her – to be trapped is terror with its claws in a dragon's belly, its fangs deep in their throat, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _know this well now. To be caged was a madness Hiccup could barely think through, even _knowing _his Toothless-self lived – for he must have – and that such traps can be broken. Of course she is afraid, and he hurts with her.

Flicking his eyes over her, he sees what holds her still: her tail is bound to a thick rope and a stake driven into the stone. Her tail-fins are as sharp and broad as Toothless', though smaller as she is smaller. She cannot pull her tail free, and she needs escape too fiercely to hesitate. If she would stop and only think, she could turn her fires upon it, but her blue eyes are wide and dark with unthinking fear.

Hiccup leaps for the last rope as the white dragon shrieks _desperation_, as Toothless dives between both long-fang dragons, squealing at the pain of the heavy paw that tears across his shoulders, ripping at flying-with and Lost One and taking none of them.

But Hiccup was watching, before. He saw the hunter shoot a biting arrow at Toothless-_beloved_ when he leapt for something he _must _leap for, and the hunter is still here.

Reckless he may be, but Hiccup is not _stupid_.

Stupid dies quickly, in his world.

He rears high.

But he leaps low.

The flying knife hisses over his head, and buries itself in the stone.

And the hunter who has missed his strike – again – roars out a familiar word.

_Stop!_

There is such authority in his voice that the long-fang enemy-dragons freeze like a waterfall caught by winter before it can crash down, their eyes fixed on their hunter-Alpha, and Hiccup _fumes _at the wrongness of it. It is a rotten taste like bad not-food, to be sicked back up and buried with disgust.

Toothless does not _stop_. Toothless crouches and submits to no hunter. Hiccup's dragon-love, his best-beloved _tt-th-ss_-self, snatches his tailfins away from the long-fangs as they cower, fangs bared as if he had won the fight all on his own. Like a shadow poured across the shredded bracken and scorched earth, he prowls deliberate and slow to the side of the white dragon Like Them. He snorts _scorn _at the hunter who thinks a human word will hold him.

He breathes _comfort _into her frantic eyes, and rumbles _protection_ for her to crouch beneath, gasping _panic_, and he stands between her and the hunter staring them down.

He meets the hunter's eyes deliberately, signaling _challenge_ with his throat bared, and his fangs too. He blazes back _fearless _to the sick-hungry delight of all the man's signals, and does not look away.

_She ours!_ Toothless signals with a growl.

Hiccup has seen _pfikingr _stare at his Toothless-self with a hunger that is _wanting_, a hunger-to-have that reaches out with its paws open to grab even as its body shrinks back in fear. Hunger-to-have is eyes wide in disbelief, and mouths open without breath or sound, like the aimless gape of a hatchling that has just discovered sleep after much running and excitement and dived into it. Hunger-to-have is a hunger-to-take without daring to pounce.

This man looks at Toothless with hunger-to-_eat_, with his tongue drooling and his teeth bared. There is a pounce in his body that trembles and leans forward to leap, and the paw not raised to throw his knife is low, clenched at his side as if to squeeze a rock to dust. He signals _starving _so clearly that Hiccup can nearly hear his stomach grumble _empty, _beneath his black like mockery of all that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _are_._

The two-who-are-one see this, and they hate it, and they snarl at him in matching voices.

When the Starving Man tears his eyes from Toothless – he turns his head as if Toothless is sticky, like he has to work for every movement – he finds Hiccup standing there at the tail of the captive dragon, claws raised _defiance_ and his black scales shining unharmed, crouched to land or leap with his hood lowered over his fur.

The Starving Man's eyes go wide another way, and he recoils as he sees –

The little dragon _does not care _what he sees.

Because Hiccup sees the heavy knife stabbed into the rock. And the rope pulled tight. And Toothless-_dearest-one_ watching him, ready to leap, waiting.

And he snatches the hunter's blade from the stone – if he did not want _(click)-phuh _to steal it, he should not have thrown it to him! – and he slams the sharp edge down on the straining rope.

It snaps with a _crack!_ like freedom, and She Like Them tears away into the sky.

And in an instant, Toothless dives beneath her wings; before he can rise again, Hiccup is on his shoulders where he belongs, nothing in his paws but his own right claws; and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _launch straight _up, up, up! _without even a whistle or a cry to urge them _faster, faster!_

There is no faster they can _go._

* * *

She is gone!

Where has she gone?

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _fly hard, black wings screaming through the sky, going nowhere but away, far away from the roars of long-fang dragons with Toothless' blood on their claws and the bitter-joyful howl of a human hunter wailing after them. The night sky unfolds around them, the bravest stars joining the rising moon that has chased away the sun, and they vanish into it like a cave.

They can always be hidden, in the night.

But she – she was as pure white as a fresh snowpack that shines even under nothing but stars, that shimmers with the faintest flicker of lightning. She should be as bright in the night sky as the moon.

But she is gone.

She was _Like Them_ and she is gone!

_Where? _Hiccup casts around as Toothless dips and veers and tumbles, dancing a broken flight through the sky. He whistles _confusion_ and _invitation_, crying out _searching_ into the empty sky. _Where you where us here come-here-you where you us want come-back please please where no-fear us good where you us you want please good…_

But she is gone.

Toothless cries _worry she danger-warning hurt hurt no bad not-want hurt_, and throws them into a wide, circling glide. He climbs from wind to wind, scenting for her, but he cannot smell any blood but his own. Hiccup is already whimpering over the wound, crouched over the torn-away scales and licking the shallow gashes clean; they have always tended each other's wounds thus.

The thick forest stretches out beneath them, unbroken by a body falling from the sky. The trees would shake, if she had been downed, if she had fallen among them. She would have cried out for them.

Surely she would have cried out for them. Toothless heard her once – he would hear her again.

Surely she knows they would fight for her. They have bled and flamed for her already.

But the forest is still, and the sky is empty, and no hunters fly in pursuit of them.

And she is gone.

* * *

_You see? you that? that she yes she us maybe-so wonder amazement!_ Toothless warbles, racing through the shallow sand flats, every leap smashing the moon's reflection from a new puddle the tide has left them. He rears high with his tongue lolling, pawing at the air, the same way that Hiccup reaches for something he cannot _quite _catch. The black dragon wriggles all over with clicking, grunting _excitement_, whistling and prancing _disbelief _as he circles nothing at all.

Yipping _delight yes me-too us together us good she see-that! searching wonder confusion what? what? _Hiccup dances beside him, pressing his own pawprints into the tracks that Toothless is leaving so carelessly through the wet, muddy sand.

They have left the hunter's trap far behind them, flying high and then diving, skimming low as they swung back around the island. They have fled the hunter, but they cannot leave this island now. Fascination binds them as neatly as any catching snare.

To see one so much Like Them! They have never truly dreamed of it, even with the Lost One riding so silently on Toothless' shoulders, undisturbed by dragon and dragon-feral cavorting across the sodden flats. This new one lives, and they freed her from a trap and fought away the _pfikingr _who meant to harm her, they set her free to fly, and they are the best of dragons indeed!

Already Hiccup is dreaming of how he and his Toothless-half will tell this story when they return to their nest and their flock. They will turn their eyes up to their king and show him how afraid she had been, and how brave they were for her. He will draw her for all their flock to see in chalk, trace her shoulders and her tail in a single line. He will smear chalk-dust across Toothless' scales and cast scraps of torn and waiting leather cords across his dragon-self to show how she was bound, and cut it all away again. He will roll in the chalk-dust to turn all his black scales white, and crouch beside Toothless as his dragon-heart stands tall and brave and glorious, driving their enemies away.

But for now they dance _elation_ and prance _pride_, shrieking _delight _in their harmonizing voices, chirring _disbelief _and snorting back to each other _better-believe-it! _as they bat this new wondrous thing between them like the best of new toys.

Brackish seawater and puddle-slime spray everywhere, abandoned by the tide to the paws of racing dragons. Toothless leaps at Hiccup in play, smacking his paws down just beside his smaller self, and Hiccup warbles _wonder _and _celebration, _batting at Toothless' nose like a hatchling. His dragon-heart shoves him over into the half-drowned sandbar with a single paw and licks him until he squeaks.

They dance _reunion _as if they themselves had been separated, although they have never seen the white she-dragon before, and maybe they never will again.

Perhaps they would have chased each other across the flats all night, whistling _hello _to the empty sky and yipping _where you where_ to the close-packed trees tumbling into the water, but in a rare silent moment, as both Hiccup and Toothless pause to catch their panting breaths, a low call splits the air.

Both freeze, instantly silent, at once alert and wary, all their joy knocked into deep waters in haste to hide. Toothless crouches low, wings outspread as he searches the sky for long-fang enemies diving upon them. The ebbing tide tugs at him, and he turns, letting the water have his tail-fins for now. Hiccup sinks back into a ready crouch, from which he can leap away or jump to the attack or wait forever, his claws crooked to strike.

Barely breathing, they listen to the night. They have not forgotten that there is a hunter out there, one who can command dragons. A hunter who could catch one Like Them will not be pleased to have his prey stolen from him.

_Pfikingr_ who trap dragons _never _like it when _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ sneak in behind them and set their caught ones free. The dragon-pair have often hummed themselves to sleep with the memories of trappers' outraged screams and terrified cries, chuckling in drowsy purrs and yawning trills.

The waves beyond the sand flats lap at the shore, breaking apart on the drooping tree-trunks and soft hummocks of sea-washed dirt. Little rivulets of seawater, escaping from their puddles through the new channels that the dragon-pair have dug up with their dancing, ripple quietly to new puddles. The ever-present ocean wind, empty now of the lying calling-scent that brought them here, whispers through the trees, which whisper and mutter their own secrets back to it, trading clicks and rustles back and forth. It sounds like a nest of well-familiar dragons scolding each other to go to sleep and stop fidgeting, fidgeting all the more as they scold.

The call comes again, and both dragons relax, recognizing the sound now. Owls have sharp claws, but they hunt only their own small prey.

_Quiet-careful_, Hiccup murmurs, shaking sand from his fur and setting his claws down to the sand. He huffs _look this this mess what this_ at the flats, and their tracks bright and clear through it.

_C'mon_, he beckons, _Toothless-dearest you here me look this bad danger-here, _and starts scuffing the tracks away.

Toothless whines lingering _excitement_, shuffling through the sand until his paws are caked with it, and Hiccup grins back at him _yes pleased me us good very-much-so_. It is an _amazing _thing to have seen one Like Them, even if they lost her again. But the Starving Man has lost her too, and that is a fiercely good thing.

It is a better thing if they do not let the Starving Man fill his belly with _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_.

So they dig up the sand until it is _all _a very great mess, and Toothless takes off in a gentle glide for the trackless forest instead.

* * *

The hollow they find, staggering with sudden exhaustion and the fading rush, is thick with low-growing new leaves and soft ferns, all the color washed out of the rich greens by the rising moonlight. The ferns rustle like a creek over stones, whispering as the black dragon steps through them, and he nudges them gently, breathing in their crisp scent. They tickle, but not so irritating to be itch-making, and when Toothless rubs his cheek against one, it bows before him, brushing away. Hiccup reaches down, combing his claws through the light spider's-web of the fern.

The little valley, only a depression in the earth that Toothless could race across in a few long bounds, is more open than they like. Hiccup and Toothless are children of deep caves and dark tunnels, of stone teeth and rockfalls, of underground lakes and high ledges to perch upon – but they will find a safe cave another time. The hollow is safe enough for weary dragons who have flown far and crept warily and fought bravely, and have seen an impossible thing. And the growing leaves are soft beneath Hiccup's shoulder when he slips from Toothless' back and rolls into a clump of them with a sigh.

He lies there, just breathing, hearing his heart still racing from the unimaginable _everything _that has turned their shared world upside down like a scuttling crab; he can only thrash his legs in the air and hope a wave will turn him over again. His spine-fins – they match Toothless' fins now – dig into his back a little, but he enjoys the feel of them. They are part of him even if they are a made thing, just like the claws he scrapes against a broad leaf, brushing the wet sand away until they are clean and glossy black scales and sharp claws again.

Any other night, Toothless would pad to stand over him deliberately and shake himself, sending sand flying, gurgling laughter at the good joke. But tonight – with such a wonder so newly behind them, even their usual games are muted beneath it and the stillness of the forest vale.

Instead, Hiccup sits up to nudge his nose against Toothless' nose as the black dragon nuzzles him, licking just the tip of his tongue against his partner-self's face. Toothless sighs deeply, all his _excitement _sliding into true _exhaustion_. He shuffles his paws beneath him, ready to settle into sleep with Hiccup curled up where he belongs, beneath his wing, against his heart.

_Wait,_ Hiccup says with a single touch, and Toothless stops halfway through a stretch, peering back over his shoulder curiously.

_You? _Hiccup says, resting a paw against the egg-shape of the Lost One still bound securely to Toothless' back, tucked into many straps of the flying-with to hold it safe. _Small-one, _he signals to it, nuzzling it too. He cries out a lamenting _lost-egg sorry you sorry sad, _reminding it who it is just as he would sing flock-sounds to an egg with a hatchling's heart thrumming within. Clever paws work at the straps, pulling it free.

He sets it down between them and pats at it, crooning _comfort _and _you-here good safe calm quiet sad-this sad rest lie-still good_, as if it were a hatchling curled up with them. Its side does not move in the deep breaths of sleep, but he pets it quiet nonetheless, pulling the leaves over it to make a hiding place. The leaves have dark veins within them that Hiccup blinks _recognition_ to – they are almost like the bones in a dragon's wing. They make a good nest-for-now for the Lost One, even if it does not know.

Scales _shush_ing against the vines and leaves,Toothless wraps himself around them both, rumbling _affection _and echoing Hiccup's _chirr _of _comfort_, and the dragon-feral relaxes back into the sound. His dragon-self's side is warm at his back, the wing spread out over him a heart-familiar darkness, the faint glimmer of Toothless' half-closed eye beneath it the only light he needs.

Together, they can shut out the rest of the world and purr themselves steadier.

Their world has changed absolutely – but not this. Never this. To be curled up together with their heart-fires warm against each other, their breathing and their heartbeats settling into a shared rhythm, knowing their absolute and perfect _belonging _to each other – it is the heart of all that they are. They are two-who-are-one and _always_.

This is the stillness in the shared heart of their wild selves, and their truest home.

At last, Toothless sighs. There is smoke still in his breath from the battle they won. _Friendly?_ he chirps softly, the half-cautious, half-inviting sound of a dragon inviting a stranger to play. But he whines _wary_, too. _Strange uncertain maybe not-sure_.

Drowsily, they wonder to each other, trying to understand. That she is like them, though a bit different, they do not question. Toothless flips his nose up with a snort, declaring the matter closed.

Hiccup wonders _how _they can be friendly, knowing that she must be out there somewhere and afraid. He does not like that she might be afraid of _them_, for he is a sweet little soul beneath the fierceness that has kept him alive. He would always prefer to play than to fight. He grunts _must _even as he wavers _maybe frightened strange-she us fierce she frightened sorry she regret_, trailing off into a whimper. She fled when she might have stayed with them, even though they fought to protect her.

Toothless murmurs _determination sure yes love-you us good searching sure_, gentled with a soft croon. When they find her – and they will look for her, when there is sun again, when they will not sneak up on her in the dark like hunters after prey – they must be polite and friendly and careful.

He rolls a sarcastic eye at Hiccup, who yips _indignation_ – he can be careful! He is _very _careful! Sometimes. And Toothless is teasing him for it, he growls without threat of fangs or fire, laughing beneath the snarl at the good joke.

His beloved black dragon-self laughs back at him, and purrs _affection_ deep and true when Hiccup's snarl becomes a yawn. Hiccup rolls into the sound, pressing close against Toothless' side, and digs his paws into the soft dragon-wing leaves. There are very many green dragons, as many shades as every forest or field _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _have ever explored. With his eyes half-closed, it is almost as if Block Us Running and Wave Sleeper and the little Nest Thief who cannot be bigger too soon are close beside them.

_Later_, he grumbles, tugging his hood down over his eyes, and Toothless feels him fall asleep like a crash, all at once.

Rumbling _love-you Hiccup-mine you mine we us together best-of-all safe you me we us love-you always-sure_, Toothless wraps his tail a little more tightly about them both – about them all – and follows the other half of himself down into dreams.

Maybe they will find the white dragon, the Mystery, there.

* * *

What wakes him, Hiccup will never know.

His dreams are full of the ocean, feeling it breathe against his small body, the cold too familiar to notice and the sting of salt-spray and the pull of the tide humming through his bones. The calling of ocean-cousins, like the songs of whales only the cries of kin, had unfolded all around him, calling to him _follow. _But he could touch them. The sounds had rippled past him like schooling fish, so thick they seem a river in the ocean. He had tapped a claw against the sound, and it had exploded away into shrieks of triumph and rejoicing. _Toothless._

He had rolled over in the water, in the dream, and seen Wave Sleeper far above him, her wings outstretched and her neck curled back upon herself with her head resting dry upon her back. Her paws had paddled idly at the ocean, signaling _something _to him. And he was flying, because the ocean is a sky, and Toothless had been beside him with his black scales turned to blue-green –

He wakes to familiar darkness, with no true desire to move. The leaves beneath him are as comfortable as their packed-down ash nest in their own home-cave so far from here. Toothless' heartbeat is steady against his skull. He can feel some tension still running through Toothless' body, but they are far from home and sleeping in the open, so of course his dragon-self is still on alert, somewhere outside his dreams.

The dragon-feral scrubs sleep from his eyes with the back of his clawed gauntlets, grunts _reassurance_, _me-here fine good fine you sleep beloved-self_, and slips out from beneath Toothless' wing.

High above, the light of the waning moon turns the hollow to silver and ice-green, shadows hiding beneath leaves and the snowflake spray of ferns. A midnight wind stirs the trees all around gently, casting their own faint shadows in the moonlight.

Petting at the ear-flap that flicks at him, Hiccup rests his paws on the back of Toothless' neck, careful of the scratches there, which have already dried to scabs. The dragon-feral licks at them anyway, tasting for fever-heat or rot, and grunts _good!_ when the wounds taste only of hurt.

Lazily, he scans the little hollow. The few scattered stones that they already looked behind have not moved, nor has any predator crept into the clearing while they slept. Even the owls have gone quiet, or flown away. Hiccup prefers them so. Owls make him jump.

Reluctant to dream of owls, the little dragon wrinkles his nose and tries to remember what Wave Sleeper had been telling them about. Eyes fluttering near-closed, half-asleep again already, he looks around the clearing again.

And she is there.

Hiccup is not surprised by this. Of course he would dream of her.

When she was trapped all her signals had screamed only _fear fear panic no no no_ and howled for escape. She had drawn herself all into a tangled clump of _terror_, her face contorted. All her subtle signals, which Hiccup does not yet know, were burnt away beneath a blaze of pure fear.

Now she sits very delicately, a wraith. She is an unreal mist-shape that will blow away in the lightest breeze. She sits up with her shoulders drawn back and her wings folded tightly, head high and tilted so far in clear-signaled _confusion_.

Hiccup cannot resist tipping his head the same, mimicking her on reflex – oh, she is nearly sideways! Any further and they will roll, he and she! He meets her bright-blue eyes, so familiar but so different, and they go wider still, and at once they both turn their heads right-way-up again.

Her ear-flaps go back in surprise – she has fewer than Toothless, and Hiccup's paws twitch to draw more for her. He longs to shape them from the moonlight she matches, just as he made the parts of himself that were missing. She seems almost unfinished, as if his drawing-stick had blunted and smudged as he traced her. As if the lines would not come right, until he must wipe all but the most needful of them away.

The smoothness along her spine is eerie – how does she glide, with no spine-fins to guide her? Hiccup remembers his own first attempts at making his gliding wings, how he veered and tumbled in the air. He had forgotten which way was up until he crashed into _down_ very sharply. For days and days, he had paced across the ledges and heights of the nest yowling _want want want _at all the sky he could not join his cousins in, except for being _carried._ He was very impatient always that summer, like his scale-skins did not fit because his soft-skins did not fit either.

Toothless had been _very _patient with him – most of the time – as he drew fins _fins fins_ all over the nest, muttering complaints even his heart-self could not understand. But at last Fisher Queen had brought him the biggest tuna she could find, clicking _impatience_. She had eaten the fish, smugly triumphant at silencing him, as he played with the tall fin he had cut from its back. And from there he had built fin after fin until he learned to fly with fins that matched Toothless' fins, and tumbled only when he wanted to.

He wonders how she learned to fly, without fins to guide the ever-changing wind across her.

Her tail is locked against her side, wrapped all around her like she must hold herself back from leaping to them – or perhaps, Hiccup realizes, a whine in his throat as he lowers his head _no-threat_, like she is protecting herself from them.

She seems so small, even as Hiccup knows he is smaller than she is; he is used to Toothless. In all his drawing, he had never imagined a _white _dragon, light to _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_' shadow. The moonlight ripples across her like water, as if she trembles.

She is _very _clear, for a dream, and he blinks at her, coming to attention in long-instinctive mimicry of Toothless.

_Toothless-dearest-one_, Hiccup clicks softly, brushing a paw down Toothless' head towards his nose. If he is dreaming, sometimes Toothless can join him there; even in sleep, they wander together. And if he is awake – if she is real again – they cannot let her vanish unspoken-to.

Lowering his eyes in a glance away from the She Like Them, he peeks up at her again. _Stay_, he pleads with her in a gesture, nudging his nose at the ground between them and posing _humble no-danger no-threat safety-here_.

Sensing Hiccup's shock and fascination, Toothless raises his head slowly, careful not to dislodge the little dragon sprawled across his neck and head. Hiccup slides down anyway, careful of his partner-self's wounds. He crouches at Toothless' shoulder as the black dragon sits up and stares in his turn.

At once, _eagerness _crackles through his body, humming through his wings and out to the tip of his tail; Hiccup can feel that urge to run to her, this kin-cousin of theirs, shared through his own body. But they do not leap. They do not run to her with screams and yelps and play-pouncing, not while she stares and shivers so.

_Hello_, Toothless whuffs at her, just a breath and a gaze.

_C'mon_, Hiccup gestures, pawing at the air as if to draw her closer. _Come here you_.

_Please_, Toothless urges her, showing just the tip of his tongue in the beginnings of a smile. _Like you you good us good look you like us like yes!_ He wraps his own tail around himself and Hiccup both, showing her the fins like hers.

Her eyes flit to it, and her tail-fins flutter.

They must be awake, then, Hiccup reasons. His dreams shift and hover and melt into each other, and good dreams do not have crickets. Crickets are irritating and loud and hard to catch, and the hunting of them is not worth the eating. Hiccup will eat anything he can survive on, but he prefers his meals not to kick in his throat.

_No-threat_, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ signal, declaring _sure confident sure real true promise_.

She hesitates, and flicks her nose at them like she expects it to be swatted. _You?_

_You!_ Toothless signals back to her, ear-flaps perking up _joy!_

They do not understand all her signals yet. They cannot read what she is thinking as she stares at them, not as they would chatter easily to a flock-mate, or read each other's thoughts in a glance.

But they will learn, if she will let them.

Cautiously, almost reluctantly, she creeps towards them, one paw at a time. Every line and scale of her says _bafflement_, screams _uncertainty_, but Hiccup can see _wonder _in her too as she stares. Perhaps she can see how hard it is for them to stand very still and wait for her. But they know as sure as falling that if they leap for her, if they run to her and pounce at her as they would greet a much-missed flock-mate, she will run from them and never stop.

She does not need them to dance at her, even if they are shuddering with longing to. They can stay crouched in their leaf-nest, shoulders pressed together, if she feels safer for that.

She is such a _strange_ thing, so different and so much the same! She looks so cold, like ice and snow and winter, white in the moonlight, and entirely eerie.

Hiccup glances at Toothless and at the little white dragon again, and he shivers all over; Toothless grunts agreement.

So they signal _friendly_ with all their hearts, as if she were a hatchling venturing from beneath her mother's wing, uncertain of the sky beyond her hatching-place and seeing all the so-much-_bigger_ dragons of the flock come to greet her.

And step by step, little by little, Shiver creeps close enough to nudge her nose against Toothless'.

Just a touch, and then she leaps away, but the dragon-pair sit up and whistle _delight _to her, rattling and whistling _good good you brave look-at-you like you here us like brave you praise!_

They do not bite her, and they do not drive her away, and Shiver's eyes widen in amazement now, not terror. She circles around Toothless, who turns to watch her with his tongue flashing in a dragon's smile, staying low.

He is bigger than her – he rumbles quiet _pleasure _to see again that this is so, for most dragons are bigger than him – and he knows very well what it is to be smaller than a dragon-cousin he is not sure of. Hiccup rears up to balance on Toothless' shoulders and chirrup greetings of his own to her.

She draws back with a gasp, but then she tips her head all the way sideways at him, her eyes crinkling at their corners.

Hiccup yips _laughter_, tipping his head the other way and chirruping _good good good._ She has made a joke, and they have both understood it! They all understand it; Toothless grins _amusement_ at him.

Gurgling _happiness_, Toothless spins with her, Hiccup scampering easily at his side, and taps his nose very carefully against her shoulder. He jumps back before she can, mimicking her attentive sit at a distance, as if _they _were Shiver.

Shiver hesitates, alone in the clearing now, and looks from _Tt-th-ss_ to _(click)-phuh _uncertainly.

_C'mon_, Hiccup urges her. _No-fear_.

She turns away and licks at her shoulder, but then she dips her head _invitation_.

And so, in moments and careful touches, in patience and proffered trust, the dragon-pair show her that she does not need to fear them. Toothless brushes his shoulder against hers, whistling _delight _at her white scales beside his black, and Hiccup weaves beneath her chest to tap his skull against her jaw, resting his paws against her heart-fires that fought for him, too.

They chirrup _reassurance _to her, and they sing _welcome_, and the dragon-pair swirl around each other in pure _delight_ until she tries a very small bounce into their circle, and then they swirl around her as well.

When they stop, standing close beside her, she glances between them and sighs. The sound is more than half a whimper, almost a hatchling's cry when some fearful thing has ended at last. And Shiver drops her head to Toothless' shoulder, eyes closing.

Purring hard enough to shake them all, Toothless rests his head on hers, and Hiccup braces himself against her shoulder. With his hood up, the dragon-feral cannot see one of her eyes open and look down at him, but he feels when she relaxes into him, trusting him to bear some of her weight.

Hiccup thrums at her, crying _wonder _over the sound to Toothless, who hums a counterpoint back to him and shuffles his feet beneath him, letting Shiver slump to their leaf-nest with them. It is still warm from their heart-fires resting there, and she nestles into them both.

Her own purr is a _barely_ thing, just a hitch in her breathing and a rumble beneath her ribs, but it is there.

Toothless is careful to put himself between her and the Lost One, though. It will frighten her, and it is not the Lost One's fault that it is frightening at first.

She is Like Them, even if she is not exactly like, and maybe she was lost too. But _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have found her now, the dragon-pair signal to each other with nothing but their eyes. They will groom her and purr over her and lick her wounds, and they will learn her signals. When she hurts, or when she hungers – and _all _dragons hurt, and all dragons hunger – they will care for her, just as they would care for one of their flock-mates they have known all their lives or seen grow from new-hatched baby to a dragon bigger than both of them put together.

* * *

When Shiver raises her head again, her eyes are brighter, her breathing easier. _You? _she wonders again, but with _intent _as if she expects a reply. _You?_

_tt-th-ss!_ Toothless rattles his name-sounds for her, and Hiccup clicks the _(click)-phuh_ that is all he retains of his once-given name, and together they tell her _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, the name for both of them together that is a soul-deep true thing. Toothless roars their flock-sound identifier that lets even flock-mates who do not know each other – their nest is big – greet each other when they cross paths out hunting, so that they do not fight like strangers.

Shiver startles at the sound, so loud when they have tried very hard to be quiet for her. Hiccup rests across her shoulders, humming _comfort_, and she settles again.

_Curious_, Hiccup warbles, and she flicks an ear-flap back. He purrs _approval_, and taps a claw against her scales, _chirk_ing an invitation, _you too?_

She considers, humming softly, and scrambles to her feet, bounding away to stand alone in the moonlight. She _huff_s a little _uncertain_, but she raises her head _proud_. She crinkles her eyes at them again, signaling that she has something she is pleased to share.

And as the dragon-pair watch in amazement, color washes over her scales.

Shimmering blues and greens and reds, like midwinter sky fires that ripple burning and flickering across the long night, coil shifting and changing around her paws. Her colors are soft, like shadows of their brighter-scaled dragon-cousins, but they move! They dance across the bones and the trailing edges of her wings, rushing out to her wing-tips and ebbing, fading. Flowing colors trace the bones of her jaw, and dart down her sides to paint the edges of her tail-fins; she curls them up before her and hides her face behind them, crouching small. She almost signals _submission_, but that cannot be right – they do not expect to understand all her signals at once and no two dragons signal the same.

Even _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _who are two-who-are-one do not always signal the same.

Her head pops up over her fins in clear surprise when Hiccup and Toothless shriek and whistle and yelp _praise good very-much-so that? that? disbelief amazed impressed you good clever that like very-much-so!_

It makes her no less Shiver to them – dragon and dragon-feral are trembling with delight at this clever skill of hers, as much her own as Hiccup's clever paws are his, and with no little envy.

The few paints Hiccup has managed to steal or make, after many failures, are among his most treasured possessions, used only for things most important of all. But to paint with _yourself!_

He knows other dragons who can change their scales, but he has never seen a dragon do it simply – or so it seems to him – to be beautiful.

Scrambling from Toothless' paws with an adoring glance – _love-you-mine_ instinctive but true – Hiccup scampers to her and taps his claws against her white scales, cooing over the vanished colors. Perhaps they might return, if he calls for them.

Shiver's purr is broken and hesitant, but she purrs. She pauses, and her wings spread _daring_, and she nudges Hiccup back with her tongue flashing a cautious smile.

Chirruping at her, Hiccup rolls for their new friend cheerfully. Playing up her push into a very great shove, he sprawls into the leaves beneath her nose. The little dragon tumbles up into an easy crouch, rising to his feet ready to pounce back at her, and shakes his matted auburn fur out of his eyes with a gesture so habitual, he forgets he is doing it at all.

The white dragon's eyes fix on his face, and all her signals slam down into pure, absolute _horror_.

* * *

The little dragon has only an instant's warning, but it is enough.

He hears her breath like a strangled scream, and he recognizes the way she crouches to spring because he has seen Toothless move much the same way, all his life, as a predator and in play. Her signals are new to him, but _fear _is primal, and _attack! _a reflex as instinctive to him as it must be to her.

Hiccup is already diving as she tackles him, her bared fangs hissing past over his head in a lethal _snap! _but her chest striking him full-on. He slams the heels of his paws into the scream behind her ribs, twisting to hide his vulnerable stomach beneath the meager protection of his own wings and back. One of her paws _thuds_ hard into his shoulder, more by accident than by intent, and when he looks up, seeing everything he can in a single glance because one look is all he has time for, he sees _hatred _in her eyes, clear even though they are upside down.

_She _is upside down, trying to peer beneath her own belly, and her claws slash back.

But Hiccup has already spotted the paw she favors – it is the one without a faded scar twisting between her chest and foreleg – and is leaping the other way. He could hurt her greatly from beneath her, he knows, and she knows it too. Her scream of _rage! _is already modulating into _fear_.

Perhaps she too has flown beside running-beasts and slammed her side into theirs, knocking them down to break their legs in the fall and leave their stomachs undefended; running-beasts have thin legs and do not know how to land.

Perhaps she has brawled with her flock-mates and kicked her hindlegs into their bellies to knock the breath from them, sending them away wheezing and coughing.

He does none of these things – he does not wish to hurt her! He only wishes to escape, to crouch _apology _–

– he _hates _that he must apologize for a thing that is _not his fault_ –

– and show her that what she believes she has seen –

– he _knows _what she believes she has seen –

– is not so.

Shiver does not give him that chance. She gathers up her scream again, and she turns on him, refusing to let him go. Hiccup sets himself to meet her, scrabbling for footing in the slippery, tangled leaves. He raises his claws defensively, and snarls _warning_, _back-away you no down don't-want no-fight me fierce!_ He will hurt her if he must.

Claw-gashes heal. Dead – and her narrowed eyes and gleaming fire-lit fangs promise _death_ – does not. This is a true thing, a sure thing, a brutal fact that underpins everything he has ever learned.

He will bloody her nose and sting her tongue to make her stop, because she _must _stop. She does not understand!

And _he _will not run from a lie.

Screaming, Shiver rears up with her wings spread and her fangs bared, her sleek face crumpled in on itself like a snake ready to strike.

And Toothless rams into her hard enough to send her tumbling, wings over tail over nose over paws all in a tangle, skidding and sprawling all the way to the other side of the hollow, a long dark gash torn through the moon-silvered green.

_No!_ Toothless roars loud enough to rival thunder, drowning out even the echoes of her scream. _Bad you no no no back-away me fight how-_dare_-you!_

And he declares, _Hiccup-beloved-self mine!_

He bristles with betrayal as unconditional as his delight was, before. Before she broke the one expectation Toothless has ever, _ever _set for some distantly-imagined dragon Like Them, if one day they flew far enough to find one.

If one Like Them objects to his Hiccup-_self_, that dragon is _not Like Them!_

It is really very simple.

Shiver picks herself up in a single flowing movement, her eyes still fixed on Hiccup with the madness of misaimed hatred. She does not stop to shake torn leaves and crushed ferns and a stripe of scuffed-up dirt from her moon-white scales, only to shake a bit of dizziness from her skull. Baring her fangs again, she howls _danger you hate-you wrong WRONG you enemy-you hurt I hurt bad worst-of-all bad! _and charges blindly.

Toothless dives over Hiccup again – the little dragon stays beside him easily, long practice and signals too small to recognize keeping their bodies in sync as they fight – to meet her, snarling _will-not!_ He snaps out his fangs and spreads his wings to block her leap, swatting a paw into her muzzle so she cannot flame.

She snaps at him and misses, and Toothless slams his shoulder into her chest. The blow drives her back, but not down; she keeps her feet beneath her. If she had fallen, he would have leapt upon her, brawling and wrestling and biting until she whimpered _surrender_, but instead she crouches, trying to slip under his guard.

She finds Hiccup there, when she was not expecting to, and he scythes his claws through the air just before her nose, his own small fangs bared _back off!_ Recoiling, growling, she does not hear his plea of _enough!_

This is a _stupid_ fight, and they do not need to have it!

Toothless repeats _enough!_ for him, louder and with more fangs flashing, and thumps Shiver soundly. _You down! _he demands, wings spread _big-strong-sure-threat._

The white dragon stumbles away, whimpering _confusion _and _fear_, and crouches not like a scolded hatchling but like a defeated enemy. Baffled and beaten, she stares from Toothless, standing large with rage and signaling _mine_ with a low growl, to Hiccup, crouched at his side beneath one outstretched black wing. The other wing is folded in close to his back, a clear and deliberate signal.

_Don't-understand! _Shiver wails, high and piercing. She flicks her nose at Hiccup, and gazes _appeal_, begging _help!_ up at Toothless. _Danger!_ she screams.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ lean into each other, rumbling _offense_ at how wrong she is.

Shaking her head as if Toothless had hit her harder – he had not, Hiccup knows his Toothless-_heart _can hit _much _harder than that – she creeps towards Toothless, circling to keep the black dragon between her and Hiccup.

Opening her jaw to show that her teeth are hidden again, dropping her eyes and her ear-flaps _no-threat, _she catches the edge of his folded wing in her mouth. She tugs on it, trying to pull him away and whimpering. She is smaller than him, and lighter, and he will have to go with her if she means to make him move.

Toothless does not snarl at her. He merely snaps his wing away, folding it again. And he glares _scorn_ cold enough to freeze.

He steps away very precisely, slow enough to be an insult all its own. She does not need to cower, he snorts _dismissal_. They could not be frightened of _her_.

Crouching between Toothless' forepaws, ready to spring to his own defense even as he basks in Toothless' defense of him, Hiccup swallows down a chattering shriek of pure frustration.

He knows what she saw, as little as he likes it. He understands why she would fear humans; it is a fear he shares, although he and Toothless have learned to face down _pfikingr _when they must. He can see the worn-away scars around her paws from chains.

But she has _no right _to judge him!

Hiccup knows he is a dragon; knows it inside where his heart-fires burn and his bones sit beneath his skins. It is the fulcrum on which his entire world spins, unbroken by the doubtful eyes of dragon-cousins who do not know him and the shape of his clever paws. They look like _pfikingr_ paws, beneath the claws, but they were _dragon _paws first, because they are his and he is a dragon.

Most dragons judge him by his sounds and his scent, by the way he moves and the unconscious signals he sends, by his innate understanding of how dragons live among themselves and his instinctive obedience to the rules of a dragon flock.

He judges himself by the love in his Toothless-_best-beloved-self_'s eyes, and needs no other measure.

He knows that perhaps he will _always _have to do this now, whenever _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _encounter some stranger.

And he will do it, because he has no other choice.

But he will hate it every time.

He hates it now. He hates the renewed fear in her eyes that they had _just _chased away for her, and the _distress no sad no regret_ whining in Toothless' chest, and the wail of _loss_ winding beneath his own snarl of _defiance_.

Toothless steps back and touches his nose to the point between Hiccup's shoulders, nudging _love-you you-mine we us _along his fins, and Hiccup turns away from those baffled-horrified-frightened blue eyes to hide his face against his dragon-self's throat.

_Sorry_, they whimper to each other, but they meet each other's eyes _resigned_, too.

And they turn their backs to Shiver, closing their ears to her cries of _confusion_. Toothless stands between her and Hiccup as the dragon-feral digs their Lost One from its leaf-nest. It was truly Like Them, and it waits still for a safe place to sleep forever. He secures it into the flying-with, his movements _anger-_sharp, without a glance over Toothless' back at the lost little white dragon.

If she begs _forgiveness_, they do not look for her signals. If she turns and flees, they do not watch her go. If she leaps at them with her fangs bared, she will regret it.

She _cannot _reject half of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss,_ and still expect to be their friend.

The dragon-pair leave her there, and they fly away into the night without looking back.

* * *

_To be continued…_

**Author's Note: **…but not immediately. Hey, there's never a good time to do this, but I need to take a week off to catch up. As I write this chapter, _Avengers: Endgame _has knocked me for six and I'm spending a lot of time staring into space. Obviously, this is causing me to fall behind in my writing. I need to keep my lead so that everything's tied together and edited and continuity-checked and kept in character and all that fun stuff, and so that you get chapters on a reliable schedule. "Freefall" will resume on May 24th. Thank you for understanding.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Freefall, **_**Part Nine**

Grimmel runs the pad of his thumb over his knife and presses harder. Blood blooms around the broken metal, shattered against the stone that…_creature_…had slammed the blade into, slicing his Ghost free.

His blood is nearly black in the fast-fading light, but the shot of pain is bright and sharp. He can focus on that, pressing the new cut to his lips meditatively. The dull iron taste clears the sick horror from his mouth, and pins him down to here.

The trap he laid has failed to capture his prey, and his bait has flown. Well enough: he was ready for that. A longer road, glimmering with a real challenge, now rolls out before him. Doubtless it thinks itself very clever, that pretty Fury and its…_thing_. He'll show it otherwise, soon enough.

There is one more Night Fury within his grasp, and now the hunt has truly begun.

His Deathgrippers cower beneath his silence, their heavy paws churning the forest floor. They dare not fly. Dull creatures that they are, they know that the punishment for fleeing will be much, much greater than what awaits them if they stay. Weeping wounds tear down Six's face, the mark of a Fury's claws sure to scar. Three snuffles at the earth between its forefeet, swaying unhappily. It may yet fall over.

"Stay," Grimmel commands it, unbloodied hand snapping out the command. His voice is still level and steady, of course; he would never let anyone, even a dragon, _especially _not a dragon, see him waver. By his voice alone, this could be any day, when he hadn't seen his life's work come back to life before him. Stepping lightly from the shadows like one of them, like a slice of the night had slipped from the sky. As if –

Three howls, low and mournful, and paws at the ground. Grimmel ignores it, as much as he ever ignores his tame beasts.

He doesn't have faith in the venom mixture that keeps the rough dragons bound to him. Faith is one step from superstition, and superstition the pit through which idiots slog, and his poisons don't work on _belief_. Still, any brew might be the one that fails, simmered too long or too hot or too old. He grows more immune to their poison by the day, but he would prefer not to test that just yet.

With one eye on his beasts, then, he crouches to retrieve the shredded muzzle, turning the cut edges of the leather over in his hands. The slices are clean, neat, deliberate – good only for the scrap pile. Grimmel would almost have believed a mind behind it.

He finds his hand clenched around a strap as if he means to choke the life from it, as if something is trying to pull him away from his very last anchor. He forces himself to let go.

"So it's true, after all," he says to himself – only idiots talk to dragons – and forces his thoughts back to the Fury he was promised.

Grimmel has always known that he would never be able to slay every dragon in the world, as much as he's often longed to. They simply don't belong here, side by side with people.

But in all his years of wandering, of hunting and learning, he has found that the world is an infinitely vaster place than the boy from the swamp could have imagined. He's met people from lands without water, where painted towers stab towards the sky like needles and the sun scorches the last drop from a man's breath. He's heard stories of a land where every terrace is a garden, and the leaves of trees are painted with gold at the command of its king. He's tasted the spices and fruits, dried but still rich as mulled wine, of a land of five thousand rivers and ten thousand gods. If he was given a hundred lifetimes, he would never be able to see them all, much less hunt them clean.

But he's slain every Fury he's ever heard of, and as he wraps the muzzle in on itself and pockets it, folding Ghost's scent away for his beasts to track, he longs to race from this tattered forest ridge and down to the sea. To be away, and on its trail –

It's all he's ever wanted.

Well. Not quite.

Grimmel dreams of a day when he'll have justice for every moment he spent afraid, huddled in darkness as dragons stole and tore and smashed. _They _weren't afraid, so why should he have to be? It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. But he will set it right.

One day, wild dragons will flee even at the sound of a child's footstep, so thoroughly will humans have driven them from the world of men.

And so he hunts them, for the challenge of the chase, but also to teach the beasts what awaits them if they show their faces near humans.

Three howls again, tossing its head and scything its tusks through the air, and Six grumbles at it like it's telling the other dragon to be quiet before it makes things worse.

Impatient to be away, Grimmel nevertheless crosses the clearing, striking it "Down!" with the flat of his hand.

He looks down, and sees black scales, limned with blood, shining at his feet.

"Oh, you clever thing," Grimmel breathes, not caring that every word's a lie. He drops to one knee between Six's feet – it raises its head to keep its tusks from him, baring its throat – and brushes his fingers across it with a whisper.

"You're wounded, my stray Fury," Grimmel murmurs. "My _Toothless_." The shock in the creature's eyes at the sound of its ridiculous name had been delicious; if he could only bottle that moment, he would throw every jug of wine he's ever owned overboard. "Now, this is barely more than a casting, just a little bit of shed scales…but perhaps you two aren't such failures after all, hmm?"

Maybe his Deathgrippers hear the menace in his tone, however light and cheerful, because one of them moans.

"Got your scent now, _Toothless_. Coming to find you," he singsongs to the empty trees, and laughs.

But movement flickers in the corner of his eye, and Grimmel's laugh chokes in his throat as he flinches away, raising his arm instinctively against an attack.

It does not come.

When he looks again, it's nothing more than a juniper's broken branch. And yet – he stares, trying to pick out the _thing _his pounding heart knows must be slipping beneath the branch and around the stone.

It isn't there. It can't be.

_What_ had it – had that truly been a man under those black scales, harrying him like a dragon? Could it really have been? Could _anyone_ have fallen so far, been brought so low?

Grimmel had briefly believed himself in one of his own nightmares, seeing the blade-sharp, blood-clear line between beast and man blurred. But the bruises he can feel sinking into his body, the tracery of clawmarks etched into his knife-hand and wrist, the sick taste of horror in his mouth – all say that if this is a nightmare, it's a nightmare he cannot wake from.

Not yet.

That _thing _– these woods are haunted with it. He saw it leap to the Fury's back and vanish impossibly into the sky, quick as blinking. He _saw_.

But it could be anywhere.

Every shadow seems to hide it. Every flutter of wind sounds like its breath, snarling dragon musk and dragon sounds against his face as it fought him. Snapping and clawing, screeching like a Fury itself, it hadn't fought like a man, but like an animal. Grimmel knows very well the sounds of a Fury's rage, and he would have thought it was a little Fury in truth.

But he'd seen it.

Had he seen it?

Maybe he hadn't. Maybe he breathed in too much of the daze smoke he'd slipped into Ghost's cell. Maybe he's lying on the scarred and blackened deck, dreaming of the Night Fury she'll bring him, and his dream has turned to nightmare, as quick as flame to ash. Maybe she's working the muzzle from her nose and jaw even now, and her fangs are bared above him, ready to tear him apart.

Grimmel digs the broken blade into his thumb again, and the world around him sharpens into knife-edge focus. He shoves the memory away and rises to his feet.

He almost orders "Go home!" to banish the Deathgrippers back to the ship.

But some tiny, cowardly, traitorous, _childish_ curdle deep in his gut twists the command into a mild, "Follow."

Grimmel has never needed anyone, but he believes in being prepared. There's an angry Night Fury somewhere in these woods. And a creature with the face of a scrawny, half-starved boy and the eyes of a dragon, two things that could never coexist fused into a single body.

It's only sensible to keep his dependent beasts to guard him as he makes his way out of the darkened forest and back towards the inlet where his ship is moored. That's the only good that comes of dragons: if they can be used. And even then, they're no more than tools.

Yes, he can think of that Viking girl Astrid instead, and sneer at the memory of her petting that common Nadder, like it cared what she thought of it. Silly child. He hopes she's enjoying the gift he brought her, and wonders if she's tasted the true poison of it yet.

He strides back towards his ship with his feet as steady as he can make them, and his gaze already distant, dreaming of the hunt.

He keeps a tight hold of the bloody black scales, ignoring every tiny sound and half-seen movement, all the way.

* * *

Six and Three tramp down the braced, broad stairs to the hold the second he snaps his hand down and commands them "Dismissed," lumbering off to join One and Four in their oversized pen. Half the ship, that takes up, and he's had to screw tie-down points across the span of it so he can chain the bulky creatures down. Sometimes he needs the ship's weight to stay level and _not move_, especially sailing alone.

Five and Two are on loan to that self-centered brat Dagur, and it's not out of any love for Dagur that Grimmel hopes they're behaving better than this mostly-useless lot. He's got a reputation to uphold, after all. Not just a hunter of dragons, but a wielder of them, and with more precision than Drago ever had.

He's not sure Drago had known the meaning of the word.

Grimmel is left alone, with the empty night all around and the forest-choked island at his back. He's stowed his precious scrap of fresh Night Fury scales in the hidden compartment at the helm, ready to give his trackers in harness the scent. Strapped to the starboard bulkhead, there's the dark bulk of his folded-up flight carrier, safely collapsed and protected from the ocean. There may not be another person for leagues, which is mostly how he likes it.

With no one to see him, he can, just for a moment, let his knees give way, catching himself against the mast. He moves hand-over-hand along one of the lines, counting his steps with grey determination. Only when he all but stumbles over a crate of hardtack bread – hm, that should be below – does he allow himself to collapse onto it, put his head down, and allow his hands to tremble. He buries them in his white hair just to hold his thoughts together. It doesn't help.

Again, he sees the creature: not quite man, not quite dragon, and entirely wrong. It had crouched like it was meant to walk on four legs, but its paws…no, they'd been hands, hadn't they? Hands in gloves with dragon-claws in place of fingernails, able to slash at his face one moment and grip a knife the next. Scuttling around like an animal, reptilian fins running down its spine but rough stitches creasing its sides. And the face of a scrawny young man with freckles dusted across his grimy skin, tangled auburn hair hidden beneath that black-scaled hood, human teeth bared in a dragon's snarl. But nothing human about its voice. It and the Fury had been _talking _to each other, mimicking each other back and forth like two warriors singing a battle-round, trading off the song line by line.

Fury and Fury-creature had screeched to each other as if they were the same.

Even the memory makes him sick. He takes a deep breath of ocean air and feels the clean salt stinging his tongue. There's iron in his mouth. He's bitten his own tongue.

Bloody spittle hits the deck between his feet in what is not – _is not_ – a retch.

And is that what the world will become, then, if he fails? Every reptilian corpse he's ever lashed up to warn the rest of their fate if they dare to cross a human's path – will it all be for nothing? Every time he's washed the blood of a dead dragon from his ship's deck, bucket by bucket, the wood now so stained he can't remember the original hue – will it all be a waste of seawater? The time he's spent stalking demons no one else dares even talk about – has his life been nothing more than the flailing of a drowning sailor, leagues from land?

If Astrid's fantasies find their feet and run, is that _creature _the world of the future?

Where men must become monsters, just to survive beneath dragons who haven't learned to _fear_? Where dragons have risen, and people have fallen?

He saw it there, in the wrath and defiance in that mongrel creature's eyes as it fought for the dragon that had dragged it down.

Dagur had said that the boy who rode a Night Fury could control it, but Dagur's stories come laden with more clanging junk than a tinker's wagon. Grimmel suspects the truth is quite the other way around. Could it be that the Night Fury – somehow – is controlling the boy?

Grimmel has spent years of his life chasing down rumors, and even when they were only rumors, he'd never counted them as wasted. If he'd learned he'd left a Fury alive behind him, he'd never have forgiven himself.

So beautiful, so terrible – but he can see Furies for the lies they are. A beast with the wit of a man.

As his ship creaks beneath small waves and the clumsy feet of his Deathgrippers, Grimmel Dragonsbane counts off the Furies he's killed across both hands and carves the rest into the wood of the crate, even the one Drago stole from him on Grimmel's own hunt. Perhaps that slice cuts a little deeper. The resentment still aches in him, a shattered knee sensing rain.

Grimmel clenches his hands into fists to stop them shaking. He spits blood and bile into the puddle fouling stained planks between his boots. When he gets these hands on that creature, he'll kill it. He _must_.

But he won't count it.

Grimmel doesn't believe in any sort of hell, but he can't imagine a worse life than that creature must be enduring. A man with the wit of a beast, under Fury wings. How fitting. Does it understand how wrong it is? Does it remember what it was to be human, and know what it has lost?

He doesn't care. He'll bleed it out and leave it to rot, and he'll call it a mercy.

Dagur had called the dragon-creature _Hiccup_. The Berserker chief had sneered at the name as he weaved wild tales of dark magic, but now that Grimmel's seen it…well, as much as he hates having to believe Dagur about anything, the name's not all that wrong.

A hiccup. A painful little flaw in the world. Like his guts are being shaken by something he can't control and doesn't understand. Such a small thing, but _so _annoying, so _wrong._ An aberration.

He has a Night Fury to track and Ghost to recapture and the lair she's crept out from to harrow. But now Grimmel has one more target to strike, and he curses himself for underestimating the creature, beneath that stone ridge. If his knife had only flown truer…

One way or another, Grimmel needs to make this…_Hiccup_…go away.

Only then will he be able to wake up from this nightmare he's been thrust into, his glorious hunt tainted.

He'll kill it not for the joy of the hunt, but to set the world back in order. To wipe out the absolute _wrongness _he'd felt as he shoved an attacking dragon off him and seen a human face fixed in a dragon's snarl.

He wonders if the Fury will be angry with him, when he kills its pet.

"I'm rather looking forward to that," says Grimmel, and starts unpacking the Deathgrippers' harnesses.

If his hands tremble while he does so, if the blade of his replacement knife cuts into the wood of the crates – well, it's dark, and there is no one around to see.

* * *

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Rudel asks as their ship – it's totally their ship now, this ship will live in songs and stories and a really good carving on the new door to the Great Hall – wobbles away from Berk and through the harbor's breaker waves. Somewhere towards the stern, Oddy and Earwig swear as the sail tries to yank the lines from their hands, and Edda stomps around the giant dragon pile that is Splat and Macetail and King to berate them, her high voice only slightly muffled.

"It's a _great_ idea!" Gustav says firmly, clapping a hand down on the other boy's shoulder, just to reassure him. Not to keep his balance at all. "Everyone knows the bravest warriors charge first. Then everyone else takes courage from them, and everyone charges. That's how Vikings win battles. We'll be heroes!"

He sets a confident hand on the sword on his hip, feeling the longship pitch as it smashes through another wave, just like they're going to smash through this blockade that dared to challenge Berk and its brave warrior Vikings. It feels so good to be _doing _something!

And then he realizes none of his friends can see him anyway, because it's really, really dark out here between the scattered handfuls of lights from the black ships threatening Berk and the stubborn glow from the Great Hall, which is kind of a very long way behind them now. So he might as well sit down and hope they don't hit one of the nasty rock spurs that lurk just underneath Berk's harbor.

Easy to avoid them in the day, with the sun shining off the water and in a fleet ship. Uh…sort of easy. If you know where they are, and what the harbor currents are like.

In the dark? With sixteen heavily armed young Vikings – also known as everyone he could rustle up who knows how to hold a weapon and put their pants on the right way around – and six dragons crammed into the biggest ship they thought they could sail?

Gustav really doesn't want to go swimming tonight.

Besides. If Chief Astrid finds out about this before they've actually done the being-a-heroic-Viking-warrior bit, she'll be sarcastic at them. There might even be irony. And then Gustav will have to just die.

Even if it was her plan in the first place.

Last year.

Look, if she didn't want people to steal a plan that had worked, she shouldn't have told the story so many times over the long winter.

Treading carefully, crowding past someone who grumbles just like Holm, Gustav manages to make his way to the prow of the ship and the raised lookout deck there. He wraps one arm carefully around the dragon figurehead, peering out ahead at the cluster of lights blinking on the water. That ship has no idea what's coming for it tonight, and it'll never see Gustav's crew coming.

"That looks like Thunder," says a voice from behind him, an instant before something moves in the corner of his eye.

Gustav doesn't jump – he just holds on to the figurehead a little tighter, right as the ship bucks again. They've passed the lighthouses. Everything and everyone on board lurches, their armor and weapons and heads clanging into each other.

Except for the Zippleback head peering down at him, her eyes reflecting the distant but approaching lights like the sparks from her jaws.

He doesn't have to look around to know that there's a second head on his other side. "Really?" he says instead, turning around casually. "I hadn't noticed."

Nessa – or maybe it's Nixie – stares back at him, her eyes as wide as her Zippleback's – _and just as empty_, Gustav thinks nastily. A moment later, he thinks _I take it back!_ as loudly as he can, just in case the twins really can read minds. _Um. Whichever one you are._

"The dragon's head is an omen," the girl intones, folding her hands in her lap where she sits on her Zippleback's forepaw. The lighthouses make it a little easier to see, but Gustav still only knows what she's doing because the twin raises them dramatically in the air first.

The two-headed dragon/s is sitting back on her haunches, peering at Gustav and back at her little mistress as she proclaims, "The dragons will lead us to victory, and they will fly freely again."

There's been a constant low hum of talking on board from the moment they steered the ship out of the sheltered hidden harbor at the foot of Berk, shoving off against the half-cave walls with spear poles and sword hilts. And they might have gotten out a bit faster – _someone's_ gonna notice that fifteen teenagers (and Gull) and six dragons have gone missing, with their families and neighbors as scared as they are – if Tamface and Tengi and Bear hadn't been sitting on the oars.

Oh, but _now_ everyone shuts up. No more hissing arguments. No more muttered wagering on who's going to make it to the command deck first. No more wrangling over who got the lucky knife with the purple crystal in the hilt, or Edda kicking the actually unlucky winner until they gave her mother's knife back. No more of Dogtail's tuneless singing to keep Lanche from getting seasick like Gronkles sometimes do. No more rattle of loose swords against the hatch cover. Someone should really pick those up. The sail still creaks, but if even the wind had gone still, no one would have been surprised.

"Wow," Gustav says into the silence. "You lot couldn't have been that quiet when we were sneaking out of town?"

"Sssh!" Tamface hisses, and Gustav silently promises to dunk the smaller boy in the slop trough later. "The twins!"

"The twins," Gustav mutters to himself, rolling his eyes where no one can see him. But he stops short of saying _the twins are fakes._

Because. Uh. They might not be.

He privately – _very _privately, as in "only when the twins are known to be asleep" – thinks they'd be slightly more convincing mystics if they weren't chubby redheads with enough freckles to open a freckle shop.

Nixie and Nessa raise their other paw high into the air above their shoulder, and sure enough, the second twin is sitting on it, hands raised high to match her sister. Gustav decides that this is Nixie. No one can ever tell. "Be bold!" Nixie intones. Somehow everyone can hear her, even as she keeps her voice low. "Be brave! Be the new heroes you were destined to be, and we will prevail!"

Some days Gustav just wants to push that girl off her dragon's paw and into the ocean. She'd float.

But his gang – no, his crew – no, his warriors are murmuring approval and stomping their boots softly against the ship's deck, so there's no point trying to upstage them now.

Except that Nessa looks him in the eye and grins cheekily, and Gustav deeply wishes he was still small and not in charge of the fighting force that's totally going to save Berk, because then he could stick his tongue out at her. And possibly put bugs in her hair.

"Everyone remember the plan," he says, stepping into view, past Nixie and Nessa's blue-golden wings as the Zippleback puts Nixie down again. "We sneak up on the ship, and we take it! We turn their weapons on the other ships, or we hunker down and wait until we can ambush another one. If we can't do that, we turn it around and sail it away."

It can't be _that _hard to steer, right? It's just a bigger longship, right? Even if it's all iron, and the last time Gustav checked, iron sank.

He really misses that sword, too, but what was he supposed to do? Not take a sword on a fishing run? What if Dagur had attacked? Or a Scauldron that didn't know about the truce had gotten hungry? Or Ragnarok had come? Maybe he'd be the first Viking to fight a storm with a sword! Although, as it had turned out…not.

"And we break this blockade!" he says, waving a fist in the air.

A bunch of clenched fists, some of them with weapons in, wave back at him, and Gustav has the _best _feeling about tonight.

Gustav doesn't miss the days when _every _day was a war, when dragons plunged snarling and flaming and raiding from the sky. He'd spent long enough running behind the real fighters, putting out fires, to know that they didn't always win. Sometimes the dragons got past the swords and axes and maces.

Sometimes he and his friends didn't put out the fires in time. Sometimes the fire was faster. Sometimes people didn't get out.

The pit up in the mountains is now where his gang spends – _wastes _– their days, telling each other lies and testing each other with dares, throwing fish scraps and failing to lure Kraken and Thunder into the ring, dreaming of what they'd do if their swords were needed again and Astrid wasn't trying to turn everyone into farmers or dragon tamers.

But Gustav misses how glorious that pit had been, once. How fearless he'd felt, leaping to the attack against whatever creature old Gobber had thrown at them that day. How totally cool it had been to run at a dragon with his sword flashing, yelling loud enough to be heard even over the jeering and cheering and random noisemaking from the edges of the ring as his friends watched.

He'd thrown himself at those dragons until he knew he'd never, _ever _run scared when he was fighting for real, fighting to defend Berk like his father probably had. He'd promised the whole gang – or at least the ones big enough to train with him then – that when it was their turn, with him at their head, they'd be the most terrifying force those dragons had ever seen.

Fine, maybe he'd been saying that he'd be doing so as Snotlout's lieutenant, but they were his friends first.

They'd sail away out there no matter what they'd have to do, and _they'd _find the dragon nest that kept spitting flaming monsters at them, and _they'd _end the war once and for all!

That war ended before he'd really gotten a chance to prove that _he _was the hero they'd been waiting for.

But now their war has come right to them, and Gustav can't wait to show everyone – especially Snotlout, who'd left them to follow Astrid around, not that Gustav's jealous or anything, because Astrid probably wouldn't notice him if he was on fire – that the young warriors they didn't think they needed are exactly the warriors who are going to save them all.

Ahead of them, the black ship looms, and Bear and Airhead join Oddy and Earwig as they haul the sail's lines back, choking it closed and losing the wind. Dogtail boosts Tengi up onto his shoulders to furl the sail properly, the smaller boy's hands moving surely even in the dark. And the longship settles into a steady glide, slicing through the waves on no power but her own.

Gustav tightens his grip on his sword as the black ship's jagged iron hull blots out the night sky, filling the world like a wall. He has to force himself to breathe, and when he glances back at his crew, he can practically feel the tension humming through the ship, hovering over them all like fireball lightning.

The dragon figurehead knocks against the iron ship's hull with the tiniest, quietest _thunk_.

For an endless heartbeat – Gustav is pretty sure his heart has stopped – no one moves.

But nothing stirs. No one shouts an alarm. No one leans over the high railing of the _so much bigger than it had looked from Berk _ship and pours a guzunder pot over them.

Eventually, Gustav remembers that this is his mission, and he's their commander no matter how many prophecies the twins make, so he's going to have to be the one to move.

"Thunder," he whispers on the second try. His first attempt comes out as more of a croak.

Broad wings rustle at the longship's stern, and a moment later, his Monstrous Nightmare is hovering over him, claws sunk into the bulkheads, wings spread for balance. Her head is reared up high, but she peers down at him curiously.

Thunder isn't as pretty as some dragons, with their jeweled scales and glossy hides and – if Angry's little sisters have been around – little flower crowns hanging from their horns, but Gustav knows she's the smartest Nightmare on Berk. The muddy brown dragon takes the coiled-up rope ladder he hands her in one deceptively gentle claw, and she takes off in a great leap almost before he's said, "Fly up! Drop! Hold!"

Everyone listens for the shout that means their surprise ambush has been busted before it's even begun, that means someone on board has spotted the Nightmare soaring onto their ship. It doesn't come.

And the ladder unfurls down onto the longship so neatly, Gustav couldn't have placed it better himself.

"Attagirl," he whispers up the side of the ship as he tugs on the ropes and they don't move. He turns to his crew and finds them all on their feet, favorite weapons ready and shields on their backs for the Vikings – all that rattling good for something after all – and bright excitement in the eyes of the dragons.

"All right," Gustav says, grinning madly. "Ready or not, you lot – let's go!"

* * *

The ship is brightly lit and really empty.

There's stuff everywhere – giant crates covered in enough canvas to make new sails for every longship and fishing boat on Berk, tall capstans and winches jutting sturdily from the deck, neatly coiled ropes tucked away into corners, barrels lashed to each other and strapped down anywhere they'll fit, hatches sitting shut all over the deck, a giant pile of rough chains strewn all over a sheltered area by a door – the ship's so big, it has doors! Lanterns hang from all the ropes and shine from every railing, the little flames within the thin glass flickering as they chew down their oil-sodden wicks.

The ship doesn't even rock with the waves. It's too big. The masts high above are like trees, metal driven into them to make a ladder so the crew can climb up to set the vast black sails.

But what crew?

"Where is everyone?" Murky asks. Beside him, Splat shakes herself into brief flames, rippling out almost at once as she noses his shoulder. He pats her with the hand not holding an axe.

"Maybe they're all asleep?" Holm suggests. "King! No! Come back here!"

The Gronkle trundles back towards his friend with that peculiar rolling gait of his, like he's always on a pitching ship, as Edda pipes up, "No way! All at once? That's stupid. That's not how _I'd _do it."

"Yeah, well, they're not you, _Astrid Junior_," Tamface snorts at her, and Edda brandishes a sharp little fist at him. His Kraken flares her nostrils at the girl, tail-spikes bristling.

Gustav's baffled friends are beginning to spread out from their huddled battle-ready clump, poking things and kicking at hatches, their enthusiasm fading.

"Maybe they're not real," says Bear.

"Uh. We're standing on one of them," Angry points out. "Macetail, don't eat that."

"Not the _ships_, dumbhead," Bear pushes back. "The crews."

Back at the rail, the twins gasp in unison and press their hands to their hearts. "Something is wrong here," Nessa – or maybe Nixie – says. Nixie and Nessa flutter their wings anxiously, heads staring in so many directions, Gustav is almost worried the Zippleback is going to fall over the edge and smash their little longship to pieces on her way down. Thunder, perched next to her still anchoring the ladder, narrows her eyes suspiciously.

"Be wary," the other twin picks up her sister's refrain. "This is a trick."

"Yeah, unless you know what trick," Roddy growls to them as he stalks past, pushing at crates, "that's not helpful."

They glare at him.

"Shut up, everyone," Gustav says for about the thousandth time ever. "Shut up! Everyone, to me. I don't like this."

"I do!" Rudel says, scrambling on top of a capstan and posing with his sword in the air. "Looks like this ship's ours! And if they're all empty, this whole invasion is a fake!"

A ragged cheer bursts out from the more excitable young warriors, but Gustav isn't cheering with them. As much as he hates it when Nessa and Nixie are right, all the hairs on the back of his neck are standing up like there's a furious, hungry dragon behind him, its fangs bared and drooling. But when he whips around, sword drawn, there's nothing there. Just the windblown lanterns and his friends roaming the empty deck, weaving between the canvas-covered crates and racing each other up to the helm, the hobnails in their boots ringing against the metal-and-wood deck as the ship creaks.

No. Wait.

The creaking metal is a lot closer than that.

Movement in the corner of his eye isn't Nixie and Nessa this time, and Gustav has just enough time to yell, "Ambush!" before the cages big enough to hold all their dragons slam open, canvas tumbling to the deck, and armed men boil out of hiding like a swarm of bees, swords and halberds flashing.

The ship explodes into chaos and shouting, running and screaming, the roars of dragons and the clash of metal on metal.

In an instant, Gustav goes from staring around to fighting for his life as a man five hands taller than him and a _lot _heavier swings down a sword that more than matches him. He dodges and blocks, the man's sword screaming along the edge of his, staggering with the weight and the blow. The edge of a hatch catches the heel of his boot, and it's all he can do to keep hold of his sword – _ne'er drop yer weapon, boy!_ Gobber roars in some corner of his mind, long after his hands have fixed tight around the hilt – as he stumbles.

Tamface charges into the man, tackling him full-on, and Gustav scrambles away. Nodding his thanks, he steps backwards into his friend, and they guard each other's backs from misaimed swipes and the _slam _of a mace.

Thunder swoops over their heads, yowling and flaming, lashing out at the men closing in on them, but even her fire doesn't seem to be driving them away. They recoil, but they persist, eyes squinted half-closed, and despite himself, Gustav remembers a hundred fires he faced the same way. He didn't let the heat of it stop him then, and these men don't give up either. They just keep coming.

There seem to be hundreds of the men, enough to crowd the Great Hall all on their own, and his friends are scattered across the deck, on the defensive and taken by surprise – and then a terrible scream splits the battle straight in two.

"Uh oh," Gustav says.

"Also, yay," Gustav says.

A double-headed axe in each hand, screaming wordlessly, madly, the quietest boy in Gustav's crew charges into the thickest clump of armed men.

Gull is eleven. Gull is so blond it's like looking at the noonday sun. Gull is technically Gullfaxi, but he'll beat bloody anyone who calls him that _girl's name, _so people just don't.

And Gull is a berserker.

So Gustav had _absolutely _invited Gull on this mission to save Berk, and if the gods are good –

Gull hits the men who have Lanche and Kraken in a net like the tree-sized bolt that had broken the Great Hall's door, axes spinning like that terrible chopping machine Gobber had built a couple years ago, to which both Astrid and Stoick had yelled _No!_ so loudly everyone in the village had complained of echoes for days. But not too seriously, because everyone was grateful that contraption had been banned.

The shouts of panic in his friends' voices turn to cheers, and Gustav whoops and yells, "Fight!" As another wave of enemy warriors circle around the terrible bloody metallic whirlwind that is Gull chasing five people at once, Gustav charges for them with Tamface and Bear at his sides. Across the deck, he can see Tengi and Dogtail defending the twins as the redheaded girls cling to each other and point their Zippleback at people to bite. Roddy and Rudel and Edda have found a corner to put their backs to and are holding it. Airhead and Oddy and Angry are following in Gull's wake as the berserker boy slams one of his axes into a capstan, killing it quite dead. He can't see Holm or Earwig or Bear.

Who is he missing – where's Murky – no, there he is, sneaking around the back of a dragon-sized cage with his knives drawn – Gustav yells so everyone can hear him, and tries to listen for all of them even as he fights for all their lives.

And for a minute or two, it almost seems like they might win.

And then that door opens, and another wave of enemy forces charges out, fresh and new and ready for the fight.

And one after another, Gustav's friends go down. Someone gets a chain around Thunder's wing, and Nightmare flames won't burn metal. Berk's Vikings had brought down so many Nightmares that way. She crashes to the deck, and Gustav loses her in the crush, and somehow that hurts worse than seeing Nixie and Nessa pulled away from their twins, who were right after all – eventually. He sees Oddy lured away from guarding Gull's back, and Airhead impulsively leaping to follow him.

A _lot _of enemy warriors throw a net over Gull, and the boy falls still blindly chopping at an enemy he can't fight, that doesn't bleed, that doesn't wave a sword at him to be met and shattered.

Gustav hears King howling in distress and fear, and Splat shrieking as a cage door slams shut on her, the man who'd baited her in there ducking out through the bars.

The man with the giant sword comes around for another shot at him, and Gustav's hands are ringing with the nonstop blows, and this time, when the man slams his blade into Gustav's, the sword shudders from his hands and falls, ringing, to the deck.

And they've lost, they've lost, they've _lost_…

* * *

The next morning, Astrid is halfway into one of the felled battle torches, trying to coax a knot of hiding Terrible Terrors out of the crown so the men sighing like dramatic girls right behind her can set it back up.

"Dragons are fireproof, you know," Astrid had pointed out when they'd fetched her. "They'll move when you light it."

"Aye…" Coenric had said, the weathered old huntmaster scuffing his boots in the dust with a scowl, "but kin ye come get 'em out ennaway?"

The little dragons squeak at her indignantly, snapping at her reaching hands and then whimpering like they're sorry before she can snap back at them. "Now really, you guys," Astrid scolds, grimacing as she senses dusty straw weaving itself into her hair. "Good hiding place, but I found you. You have to hide somewhere else now." If only Terrors could be taught hide-and-seek as easily as they can be taught to fetch. Some days she'd give a lot to be able to say, "Go hide!" and then maybe leave them chuckling in their hiding spots all afternoon.

She's just gotten hold of a tail, and is working her way up to the base of it so she can pull without hurting the silly little thing, when a shout of "A ship!" rings out across the village.

Astrid's head comes up reflexively, and now she's _really _got straw in her hair.

"Ouch," she mutters to the dragon she's just let go of – it cheeps smugly – and scrambles backwards, hoping no one's watching her.

"There's a ship out there!" Madge is still yelling, so no one's watching Astrid at all. Everyone's run off to the edge of the village to see.

_Yeah, we know, there are far too many ships out there_, Astrid doesn't say, and counts herself wise a moment later when Madge goes on, "One of our ships is out there!"

"Wait, what?" she says instead, and joins the stampede. She ducks beneath waving arms and slips around heavy feet, squeezing through the few gaps she can find in the crowd, elbowing people aside when she has to, until she can see out over the ocean.

Far below and out to sea, the ring of ironclad, oversized black ships is unbroken, still spooling out like a noose. They haven't hurled anything at Berk this morning, but Astrid is sure it's only a matter of time. It's coming, whatever the army spread out across those ships has for her home next. Whatever that slimy hunter Grimmel is smirking over this time. Whatever Dagur is laughing about today.

Maybe they're still putting together their next barrel full of incredibly nasty dirty laundry to throw. Astrid's going to get someone for that. They'd had to burn every scrap of cloth and leather and fur just to get the stench out of the village, and the smoke had somehow smelled even worse.

Not one of the fleet's ships has moved, but almost in unison, the entire crowd points and shouts, "There!" at the big but dwarfed longship lurching out from behind one of them.

Its stained sail is raised and turned to find the wind, and the morning sea breeze grabs at the ship eagerly. From here, Astrid can't hear mast and sail and hull all creaking, but she can feel the sound in her bones, etched into her from another life. Another world. Where a strong ship with eyes on its prow and the love of its makers in its hull was the lifeblood of her people and their only chance to see beyond the horizon. She can almost feel the deck lunging beneath her as the sail bellies out, whipping the longship around and setting it scudding towards the harbor, on a course for Berk.

Back home.

Astrid knows that ship. She's had her hands on every nail and spar of it. Her heart wants to leap in her chest at the sight, because that ship means Berk far from home when everything had gone to ruin and chaos. That's the ship that brought her Vikings to her when she and her riders needed them. That's the ship that Stoick took to meet Drago's fleet at the dragons' icebound island, that took everyone back to Berk in triumph, except for the one he can never, never bring home again.

That's the ship Stoick spent all autumn rebuilding, carving out a figurehead in honor of his dragon sons, in hope that one day they'd come back to see it.

"What in all the hells is _that_ doingout there?" Astrid wonders aloud, her words all but lost under the clamor of everyone else asking the same thing.

Knowing she's not going to get answers unless she gets them herself, she pushes through the crowd again – her people let her past, nodding to her as she goes – and whistles for her riders.

Stormfly races to her immediately, burbling and dancing with excitement laced with anxiety, and Astrid runs a hand over her dragon friend's lowered head, scratching above her eyes the way Stormfly likes. "Thanks, girl," she murmurs, even as her heart twists to see Stormfly anxious because Astrid is.

It doesn't take but a minute for her team to show up. If there's any good to this whole mess, it's that they're actually paying attention to her for once.

"What's going on?" Fishlegs asks, his biggest Gronkle lumbering right behind him.

"Gonna find out," she answers, just as Barf and Belch crash down with a shriek and a clatter – oh wait, that's the twins. The twins might be wearing armor, or possibly Gobber's scrap heap fell on them again. It's hard to tell. Snotlout and Fearsome aren't far behind. Astrid privately bets they'll be first to answer her call next time. Dragon and rider both look quite miffed at being the last ones ready.

"And we're _just _going to find out!" she adds as Stormfly crouches and Astrid mounts up, raising her voice and hoping anyone's listening. "We are _not _attacking anyone, you hear me? Unless they attack us first."

"Uh, they did!" Snotlout complains, waving his hands at the village. In just over a week, the bright new buildings have been dulled by smoke, and everything that can be covered or protected can be. Every door and window in the village is shut tight. Buckets of damp sand are scattered everywhere, ready to put out small fires. The dragons that should be basking on the roofs and gables are hiding in the shadows of houses, slinking around unhappily, or nowhere to be seen.

It's been a terrible week. She's not proud.

"When are we going to start fighting back already?"

It's a good question. Occasionally Snotlout asks those.

And Astrid does not have an answer. She knows she's missing something, some line on the map she's trying to draw that she can't see, and how can she navigate when she knows there's a hidden reef out there?

"Let's just get Stoick's ship back," she orders, and taps her heels against Stormfly's sides _up!_

Astrid knows that she's flying her friends into danger, on top of everything weighing her down, but that weightless moment when Stormfly spreads her wings and flies is as sharp and glorious as ever. For just an instant, Astrid can leave all of it, the war that's come to her and the responsibilities she took up willingly, behind.

Those burdens catch up with her straightaway, but at least they have to chase her while she points Snotlout and Fearsome to their usual positions out to starboard, and yells probably in vain at the twins to, "Dammit, you two, fly level for _once_, will you? Just this once!"

They whine, and Astrid shouts, "I mean it!" and doesn't give them the chance to argue. The twins can argue with each other, and do, while she calls back, "Fishlegs! Stay up and out of range! You take the high seat, got it? Might need a big splash!"

"Got it!" he shouts, and his Gronkle starts to head up into the sky. Astrid allows herself a tiny sliver of a smile. Those ships have been having such fun throwing stuff at her. Maybe she'll get to see how much they like a freely plummeting Gronkle racing its own lava straight down.

But the smile fades almost at once as their dragons streak out towards Stoick's ship, which is lurching towards the harbor, pitching wildly in the waves. The wind that the dragons are having to fight against as they fly into it is churning up the ocean like it's cooking a stew; the errant ship wallows and founders, and Astrid grimaces. Her attempts at stew all end with dismal chunks of half-burnt, half-raw food, sunk like rocks to the bottom of whatever caldron some over-hopeful mother has loaned her, and about as edible.

She can only hope that this strange mix will turn out better. Is there even anyone on board? she wonders as Stormfly soars, wings beating firmly. Or is this just an empty ship? How did it get out there in the first place?

Actually, that's not the question, Astrid admits to herself through gritted teeth. The real question is, who in all the hells was that reckless and stupid?

Also, how had she missed them commandeering an entire ship – and _this _ship, of all the ones they could have taken? In the morning sunlight, Astrid can almost ignore the fact that the stylized Night Fury that should spread its wings across the bellying sail has been blotted out with what she prays is paint and not blood.

No. Like hell. She can't stop seeing that.

Or the runes for _Drago's Defeat _painted along the starboard hull as the ship scrapes against one of the rock spurs that fill the harbor, sending it astray and nearly slewing keel-up. Or the deep gash that slices in between the words, into the ship's shallow hold and all the way down to the waterline. And probably beyond, from the way the ship is floundering. The dragon figurehead dips into the water and struggles to rise again; waves wash over the sides. This ship has been wounded and cut loose to drown.

"That's Gustav!" Snotlout shouts as they close in on the ship and its passengers come into view, and Astrid swears ferociously. Oh, she might have _known_…

The moment her riders rescue this lot, she's going to kill them herself.

A dozen or more teenagers sit and lie strewn across the deck, hands and feet bound. Bloodied and bruised, dispirited and exhausted, frightened and caught. As Stormfly swoops in a wide circle around the gradually sinking ship, every face turns upward like a nest of baby birds, their mouths open in a moment of silent surprise, and then a lot more moments of the loudest screeching they can manage.

Alive, they're alive, and relief sweeps over Astrid like a storm wave, so powerful she has to slump into her saddle and rest her head on her hands, pressed against the back of Stormfly's neck. Fearsome and Barf and Belch dive past them to the rescue, mincing to landings among the scattered young idiots. Their riders scramble down and start cutting Gustav and his mismatched gang free.

An entire generation of her people who aren't dead today, unless the Zippleback steps on them.

Somehow, Stormfly knows that Astrid needs just this moment to breathe and be thankful as all the terrible possibilities roll out before her – bloodied bodies, hostages kept, washed-up children limp on the shore, the wails of all the parents she would have let down by not paying more attention to her own people instead of the enemies waiting her out, the shame and grief as she confessed herself a failure who'd let everyone down and all these reckless teenagers die, the weight of Stoick's disappointment, the fathomless ocean closing over her head forever as she threw herself into the sea – and then she lets them roll away.

Her Nadder friend warbles and rattles at her, trying to peer back over her own shoulder, and Astrid takes a deep breath and sits up again.

"I'm all right," she says, willing it to be true, and strokes Stormfly's dappled blue scales. "I'm all right. I mean, I'm _so _mad at them, but I'm all right. Down we go, girl."

But as Stormfly descends into the chaos of a longship that's starting to resemble a beehive someone poured a kettle of water into, Astrid still can't take her eyes off the armored blockade. It's far too close. They're lurking.

Fishlegs and his Gronkle – Dark Deep, she remembers suddenly – buzz past to check out the damage to the hull, and the sound of Dark Deep's wings blends together with Stormfly's.

It sounds like _kill on sight, kill on sight, kill on sight_. The refrain she'd built her life around, before everything changed. The lie she'd taken as gods' truth, once. The rule she fears Drago's – Grimmel's – still not Dagur's – ships are living by.

And they are very, very visible out here.

"What in all the hells were you _thinking?_" Astrid demands as Stormfly touches down, waving her tail delicately out of the way of a stocky black-haired boy who's staggering towards the bulkhead, brandishing a fist at the too-close iron ship and howling. "What did they do to you? What did _you_ do? Where did you get this ship?"

She knows exactly where they got it. She just hadn't thought the drydock needed guarding. "Whose idea was this, and how many of you do I have to throw in the well until Gustav admits it was his?"

"We're sinking!" someone – Tamsen – yells. "They smashed the ship! They chopped it with an axe!"

"Yes, I can see –" Astrid starts, swinging herself down from Stormfly's saddle, but she's interrupted by Snotlout bellowing, "Angry! Gimme my helmet back!" Snotlout's wearing his helmet. He has two? News to Astrid.

Gustav jumps to his friend's defense, and he and Snotlout shout at each other, fists waving.

Eirikr – she thinks she's heard his friends call him Airhead – is shouting, "Turn us around! We'll get 'em this time!" A handful of furious teenagers, rubbing chafed limbs and scowling, chime in, yelling for vengeance and payback and second shots and swords and food.

The ship lurches again, and everyone staggers, screams of rage turning to shrieks of fear. Astrid sees Tengi trip over the blond boy still lying on the deck, and a cold shot of fear claws its way through her heart before she sees that the kid is breathing. He's just asleep.

"You took Gull?" Astrid shouts through the chaos at Gustav, who probably doesn't hear her because Edda chooses that exact moment to wrap herself around Astrid's waist with a high-pitched squeal of mingled delight and fear, babbling about what idiots her friends are.

"Yes, they are, so why are you here?"

Edda scowls up at her. "Someone's gotta be smarter than them. _You _are."

Peeling the girl off her rather than admit she's got a point – until Stoick stepped down, Astrid had been spending a lot of time with Snotlout and the twins – Astrid squeezes past Stormfly and looks over the bulkhead. "Fishlegs? How's it look?"

Fishlegs pulls a face like someone's taken away his honey cakes. "Short version?"

"What do you think?"

"It's going down."

"Dammit, I'm not losing Stoick's ship," Astrid growls. He'd put so much work into it. So much hope. How can she lose this ship, when she hopes that one of these days it'll lure him out to finish it?

She glances around the deck, looking for another option. What has she got? Lots of drenched, angry teenagers. Three dragons and one more that doesn't have room to land. The weapons her riders brought. No tools. Lots of ropes. She sets her hands on her hips and glares – and grins.

She can fix this.

"Get up here," she orders Fishlegs. "We need to tie a lot of knots."

And she pulls one of her dragon whistles from her pocket and blows as hard as she can.

The sound pierces through the air like a dragon in an attack dive, so high-pitched that Gobber swears this whistle melts earwax – she had hurriedly changed the subject – and loud enough to echo off the island cliffs. A side effect, but a welcome one, is that everyone shuts up and looks at her, even if some of them are still pulling each other's hair.

The twins again.

"I am very pleased you're all alive," Astrid announces to her suddenly silent audience. "It means I get to kill you all myself, after you explain just what you thought you were doing. However, if we manage to save _Stoick's ship_, I might be merciful and let him kill you instead."

She throws all common sense into the ocean and hands the whistle to Ruffnut, who drops her handful of Tuffnut hair and grabs it, face lighting up like a bonfire. "Hey, is this –" she starts to ask.

"Yes. Call 'em in," Astrid answers, and keeps giving orders under the deafening racket of Ruffnut happily blowing a whistle a lot. At least no one else can get a word in edgeways.

"Gather up those ropes and tie them off. Twist them together if they're the thin stuff – yes, like that. Four strands should be strong enough. Check with Fishlegs, he knows sailing knots. Anything that won't break, I want a rope on it."

That buys her a minute or two of confused activity, and then the ship founders a little further, a big wave breaking over the deck and sending everyone stumbling. Ugh, these boots will take _weeks _to dry. "So what?" Ottar ventures, eyeing the water nervously. "Still sinking."

"We're not sailing this ship home," declares Astrid, smirking. Her enemies have brought their master's ships to her shores, so she'll use their master's tricks against them. She points back towards Berk. "We're flying it."

Some days Astrid just _loves _dragons.

What might be every dragon left in the village pours through the sky towards them in a cascade of bright colors and flashing wings and shining scales, answering the whistle Astrid's taken up using to call them. She's never going to have Stoick's volume, but then she doesn't need to, not when dragons talk to each other in whistles and notice when she tries to mimic them. Even if they do stare at her so. Who knows _what _she's actually saying? But they notice.

She's got a village's worth of dragons who _want _to be friends. Who love to play new games like 'hold this rope and pull'. Who preen and prance and chirp for treats when Vikings praise them for helping.

They've been borrowing dragon strength to help lift heavy things for years now, and when Astrid snatches up the loose end of a rope from the deck and holds it up over her head, she can barely count to three before a Nightmare grabs it from her hands and her dumbfounded audience cheers.

This is a good game.

Astrid steps back and lets everyone else take it from there. She leaves Tuffnut to boss around the incoming dragons, who mostly ignore him, and Snotlout to direct his former gang into tying off ropes to the places Fishlegs is pointing them to, balancing on Dark Deep's back as the stocky dragon hovers just off the bow. Ruffnut is never giving up that whistle. Barf and Belch, bugling happily, take off to join the new game of Rope Pulling.

And Stoick's ship begins to level out. The hull creaks unnervingly, but the deck sloshes a lot less.

What a strange delight and a joy it is, Astrid thinks as she returns to patient Stormfly's side, to have dragons working _for_ her. And not because she's compelled them to, because she holds some kind of power over them. Any dragon on Berk could leave whenever it wanted to – if there wasn't a blockade in their way.

No, she acknowledges with a shake of her head and a still-disbelieving smile, every dragon crowding into the limited airspace above this ship, vying to pull on hastily-lashed ropes to haul the sinking ship back out of the waves, is here because they want to be. Because they've chosen to be.

It's for them that she climbs to Stormfly's saddle again and says, "Up, my girl!"

Everyone's working to get this ship home in one piece, and that means no one's watching the ironclad ship that, for some strange reason, let it go.

"And I don't like that at all," she tells Stormfly, guiding her friend towards the looming black ship once Stormfly's gotten them through the fluttering crowd of dragons. It can't look like an appealing destination, but Stormfly takes her towards it anyway, brave girl that she is. "If Gustav and his friends went out there and attacked them, because I totally believe those kids would try that, then why would those people just let them go? These are _Drago _godsdamn _Bludvist's_ people!"

Maybe Stormfly recognizes Drago's name, because she rattles her tail-spikes and whines unhappily. Astrid sort of hopes not. Astrid hopes one day, every dragon in the world will have forgotten about him completely. She can think of no more appropriate fate for a man who'd tried to enslave them all. Or maybe Stormfly's just responding to the frustration in Astrid's voice.

"They're trying to starve us out, they're killing dragons, they enslaved an entire army of dragons for years – everything I know about these people says they're terrible. What, did they get sick of those brats overnight and decide to throw them back? Can't blame 'em really… I mean," Astrid adds hurriedly, "I wouldn't have wanted to keep Gustav hostage. Boy's got Ruffnut rivaled for jaw flapping. But y'know, I've been tempted to gag the kid once or twice" a day "myself. Why not just threaten them? Throw them in a cell somewhere? Those ships _must_ have cells. Or even just a room out of earshot somewhere, and put a guard on the door. So what gives?"

She's just thinking aloud, but she's always been able to talk to Stormfly, even when they didn't trust each other yet. Stormfly listens, but she doesn't understand, and she doesn't judge.

"I could have lost them all, Stormfly. All of them gone." She snorts, refusing to let herself get caught in the terrible possibilities, and forces a smirk. "Sure, _I'd _be happy to lose some of those kids. But I'd pack them off aboard Eret's ship for a long trading voyage or something."

Stormfly knows Eret's name. She chirps.

"Eret. That's right. Maybe I wouldn't tell him I was doing it."

But be _damned _if she loses her people to that slinking, leering _hunter_!

Astrid expects that Stormfly's approach to the iron ship will be met with shouts of warning, scrambles for weapons, fighters at the ready to drive her away.

What she does not expect, as they sweep a wide, cautious arc around the huge ship, is to be met with laughter.

There are perhaps three dozen men scattered around the deck, lolling around like they were hard at work quite recently. They look _disgustingly _like any ordinary day on Berk when her people have spent all day out with their flocks or off in the fields or pulling stone from the quarry and wood from the forest, hauling basins and carts and baskets full of whatever they've made or done or fixed today. As Astrid and Stormfly dodge between all the flapping sails, fully unfurled even though the ship is firmly anchored, these men look up, shade their eyes, and jeer.

She doesn't understand all their words. How far these men have traveled – and all for vengeance? Perhaps this is what it's like to be a dragon, listening to humans babble. She will have to be _much _more patient with Hiccup the next time she sees him.

She hopes he's safe. She doubts it.

But she understands their tone. They're mocking her, every one of them. Whatever the fight she's flown into, that Stormfly is hovering above, they think they've won it already.

And the words she does understand make her blood run cold.

"'ey, there's another one!" one of them shouts cheerfully.

"Bring it in!" a man waves, pointing at the deck. "Right 'ere!"

"Makin' it easy on us! That's more like it!"

"Decided to hand 'em all over, then? Knew you weren't as tough as you talked!" That man gestures up at her, scornfully.

"All right!" another whoops, smacking his hands together. "They keep comin' to us, we'll have 'em all by moon turn!"

"Let's get this done!" Their laughter prickles down Astrid's spine like a breath of ice, a warning out of an otherwise clear sky that a summer snowstorm is coming, unexpected and unwelcome and dangerous.

The man that waves them away might be their captain; he stomps out into the middle of the deck and folds his arms over his chest like he's having to lock them tight to keep them away from the sword slung over his back. He scowls up at Astrid, and unfolds one hand just enough to snap his fingers at his crew. They scatter to the ship-mounted crossbows and the net catapults, and maybe further. She can't watch them all.

Astrid doesn't need to pull Stormfly back. Stormfly's a smart dragon.

"You just keep staying out of our way, little girl," the captain roars after her. "We're working. Be a good girl and sit quietly," he says, and it's all Astrid can do not to force Stormfly around – somehow – and rip the dismissive words right out of his throat. "And we'll leave you to cling to your sad little rock and your dolls. Be off with you!"

Her vision red with rage, Astrid tightens her hands on her saddle grips because otherwise she's going to rip her favorite axe from the harness over her bear cloak and throw it straight into the man's face. She'll never get it back, but she'll call the loss a win. She'll urge Stormfly around and burn off the little hair he has left, she'll leap from her dragon's back and knock him down again and again until he wails, she's won more than a few fights with nothing but her fists –

She does none of these things, because she's not stupid. She knows he's baiting her. She can see the nets that must be metal-cored dragon catchers ready to launch from the net flingers swinging around to track her and Stormfly. She can see the old scars from dragon claws etched into the ship's deck, and the long scratches from laden metal cages. She can see the scattered piles of chains and muzzles and prods tipped with dragonroot, long after all this ship's dragons were set free – _gods_, she hopes she and hers turned this ship inside out good and proper last year.

Astrid hates to run away, but she'd hate letting Stormfly fall into the hands of these _slavers _even more.

So she turns her back on the jeers and the laughter and the comments about little girls who think they're dragon-loving warrior queens, and she sets her eyes on the problem she _can _solve, that she _did _solve, that's riding much higher out of the waves now with a dozen dragons pulling on it.

Except, when Stormfly dodges through the attentively lifting dragons and sets down very carefully, no one on board seems very pleased. Everyone's still shouting.

Astrid takes the whistle away from Ruffnut, which helps a little bit, raises her voice to cut through the rest of the clamor, and asks, "What's happened?"

Those perfectly matched twin girls, the ones who drift around the village claiming to tell the future whenever Gothi isn't chasing them away from her hut, are draped all over each other, sobbing loudly. Berk has weird twins.

Gull is still asleep in a corner with Edda and that boy with the unpronounceable name, the one everyone calls Dogtail, standing guard over him. Gustav is pointing at Fearsome, who's looking bored because no one is offering to feed him, or maybe sulking because no one gave him a rope to haul on, and repeatedly blurting out a barely-coherent, "Huh? You've yours! Yeah? Right?" A cluster of four or five boys – one of the smaller ones might be in the middle of that lot – are staring upward, eyes wide and faces pale, mouths trembling. Fishlegs is trying to comfort Holm, who's sitting silently with his head in his hands.

"Astrid! Finally!" Gustav cries, whipping around and stumbling towards her as the ship heaves. The dragons overhead are very good at this pulling game, but they're not very coordinated. "They took them! Those men, they sent us back, but they took them!"

Reflexively, Astrid glances over the ship, trying to remember how many –

Gustav doesn't let her. "No, you don't understand, Chief!" he goes on, and the real distress in his voice finally makes her look at him.

"They threw us back," says Gustav. "_They kept our dragons._"

Realization, a terrible thought, sinks into Astrid like a stone.

But it doesn't have time to settle there before Tuffnut screams, "Look out!"

Everyone looks where he's pointing, back out to sea, back towards the ship that caught Gustav's crew and let them go and lured Astrid out here to think she was so _clever_ –

The ship that's moving, that pulled up its anchors the moment she turned her back on them and went off in an insulted huff, that had all its sails unfurled already to catch that landbound wind –

The ship with all its dragon-catching weapons at the ready, bearing down on all the dragons Astrid called out here, that she told to hold tight and stay put. The dragons that trusted her not to give them stupid orders or to put them in harm's way.

The ship that was never here for _Vikings_.

And everything Astrid thought she had figured out comes crashing down around her like a glacier's edge. Another layer behind it, inexorable, but they're all standing right underneath –

Her scream of _DROP THAT! GO HOME!_ rises in her throat like vomit, her heart wailing to send her faithful dragon Berkians away to safety. Somehow she bites it back.

If the dragons let go – if they run from the menace descending on them – what of the Vikings they came out to save? The ship will fall, and every one of them will be thrown from its broken back into the treacherous waves and hidden reefs of Berk's harbor. The hull will shatter around them, the hold crumpling beneath them like a trodden-on acorn shell, fragments of metal and wood sent hissing through the water like thrown spears and flung knives, the shock of the sudden breathless cold of the seawater forced into noses and throats, bodies everywhere flailing for air the sea will snatch away from them.

Shipwrecks are how sailors drown.

Caught, Astrid freezes, horror sweeping over her like an avalanche, her feet locked in place by ice, her mouth choked with snow. She has made such a terrible mistake. She can't breathe, she can't think, she can't run, and she _can't save anyone_ –

Her mind spins as if caught in that shipwreck already, everything tumbling around her. She hears her dragonriders yelling, and Gustav's crew yelling back at them, everyone shouting as the dragons overhead falter, the ship's prow tipping towards the water again. Beside her, Stormfly whistles and whimpers, pushing her nose against Astrid like she does every morning as soon as the first light of dawn ventures over the horizon, _wake up, wake up_.

Stormfly digs her claws into the deck, peeling up long strips of the fracturing wood. As the shadow of the black ship stretches out towards her, the blue-dappled dragon spreads out a wing and crouches, urging Astrid _come on, come fly_ as clearly as speech.

What will she do, Astrid wonders, if her rider doesn't move? If Astrid just stands here, frozen, and lets the ironclad ship run her down?

An image forms in her head of Stormfly pouncing upon a wild boar, claws –

"Got it!" Astrid shouts, spinning on one hobnailed heel and clapping her hands. "Everyone grab a rope! Up, up, up, now!"

"What –" Garwig manages to get out, so she grabs him first, marching him across the deck and pushing him towards one of the ropes.

"Climb it! They don't have to carry the ship, guys, forget the ship, they just have to carry us! _Climb the rope!_"

"Oh, I get it!" Edda yelps, and scampers, swarming up the nearest straining rope until she's almost close enough to touch the Nadder's claws. Murtagh's right behind her.

Astrid draws her axe – everyone around her scatters, they've _seen _her swing an axe – and chops through the hastily tied knot. It snaps, and the Nadder lurches away, towing the two screaming kids back towards the island like a leaf kite.

"Twin rescue powers, activate!" Ruffnut yells behind her, hauling one of the redhaired junior twins bodily over to a returning Barf and Belch. Snotlout has Fearsome's bridle in a headlock, pinning the grumpy Nightmare down and ordering him not to flame while three teenagers scramble aboard his back.

"I got one!" Tuffnut shouts back. "Which one is this?"

"I'm Nessa!" the twin under his arm screams, just as her sister screams the exact same thing.

"Who cares?" Gustav snaps. He's thrown Gull, who's _still _sleeping, over one shoulder, and Astrid considers not killing him after all. "Hey, Chief, we need a lift!"

She points him to Stormfly, and cuts a rope carrying Tamsen and Ottar free; the Gronkle clinging to the other end drags them into the sky.

And all the while, that ship comes for them, catapults snapping to life and sending nets shrieking over their heads at the retreating dragons. Fearsome catches Roddy in one claw and Snotlout in the other, taking off in a frantic rush that barely clears the water and thoroughly drenches both Vikings. Both sets of twins bail out aboard a trembling Barf and Belch, Holm clinging to their shoulders where both necks meet with his eyes closed.

Fishlegs grabs his rock-breaking hatchet and chops strings of frightened young Vikings loose, patting the backs of anyone he can reach; his voice flutes high with tension as he tries to reassure them that they're going to be all right, they're all going home. Eirikr vaults over the side of the ship – not very far at all – to hitch a ride with Dark Deep.

Arrows fill the air, and Astrid sees one of the unburdened dragons struck. A Nadder. Blue enough that she could be Stormfly's sister, or mistaken for her, a shattered scar across her chest a bitter legacy of the war that no one won, and yet here she is anyway, trying to help the people who hurt her once.

She falters in the air, eyes rolling, and wavers drunkenly into a dazed hover.

Dragonroot.

Sure enough, a hissing net wraps around her with practiced accuracy, and winches her back towards the black ship that was never here to _kill_ –

A catapult stone slams into the deck and keeps going, breaking the back of Stoick's ship, and Astrid runs for faithful Stormfly – she does _not _deserve this dragon – and Gustav yelling for her with sleeping Gull still held tightly as the water roars up to swallow them all.

Stoick's ship founders for the last time as Stormfly's claws leave it, as Astrid prays, _no, Ran, please, none of us drown today_ and wishes fervently there were a god to watch over dragons.

Some Viking she is. Some chief.

Drago's army hasn't come for _her_.

Drago's dragon hunters have come for their dragons.

* * *

_To be continued._


	10. Chapter 10

_**Freefall, **_**Part Ten**

Toothless smells her long before he sees her.

The scents of the shoreline are familiar ones, rich with salt-heavy sea-grasses and all the little scuttling things that hide and die beneath washed-up wood, twisted by the ocean. All shores smell different, and all of them the same. Long Stretch Snap could follow each scent blowing in from the sea and down from this island, but there are more than Toothless can track. Still, he has caught no whiff of fires but his own, no sharp warning scent of claiming marks.

Thick pads of sea slime smell as green as they look, all tangled around long cords of seaweed, pushed together by the waves. Small creatures whisk away beneath tumbled stones cascading down into the sea, and Toothless can track his Hiccup-self's leaps and scrambles across them by his scent.

He does not need to; far from home and wary, they keep each other in sight always.

Out on the stones, Hiccup freezes still, signaling _pounce_. He dives into the shallows with a great splash, vanishing beneath the water. Toothless rears up high to watch him, in case there might be more fish there than his beloved-self can eat on his own.

He is only watching Hiccup, of course. He is not at all glancing very sneakily around the broad expanse of shore, searching for the scent that tickles at his nose like a wisp of grass caught there. If he listens, it is for cries of _fish here good you-come excited invitation good hurry fish many many fish!_ or perhaps a shriek of _outrage thief you back-away mine this mine I fight you thief!_

They came here by night and curled up very tightly together, licking away their wounds to hides and hearts alike. All that night, they drowsed and growled and soothed each other, wary in case there were dragons here already. Many dragon-cousins do not fly by night as they do, so sometimes _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ can find a new place empty, and wake with the day to find it very full indeed.

But since then, they have called greetings and searched along creeks and poked their noses into shallow caves, and found no dragons here. The churned-up holes that riddle the earth smell stale and old. The twisting-jaws cousins who dig those holes must have abandoned their tunnels long ago, leaving them to fill and fall.

They found no trace of hunters, or of ships stopping to rest their wings, except for a few pieces of shaped wood that even Hiccup dismissed as not of interest. They have been here another day now, scavenging and playing games just for themselves until they could fly level again.

Now Toothless smells _her_. Her scent is strange and new but half-familiar, tangy across his tongue and itching behind his nose where he cannot scratch. It pops like marsh bubbles, except marsh bubbles smell dead. She smells like deep stone and swift water, like she-dragon and musk, like the nest he and Hiccup share, except not quite. She smells of alive and real and things he cannot place. She smells of far away and stories.

But that cannot be right; stories do not have a smell.

He cannot see her.

He does not look; he only twitches one ear-flap back _annoyance_ and wrinkles his nose.

Instead Toothless bounds to the waterline gurgling _laughter_, prancing _play_, pouncing and warbling _gotcha no you go-back I here I stand you no you go-back go-back play-challenge love-you back-anyway mine here this mine you away!_ He splashes his forepaws into the breaking waves, wings fluttering and tail lashing.

Shrieking _fight challenge only-playing no ME here you big so-what silly you big dragon I pounce_, Hiccup splashes him back and dives for the small space beneath Toothless' paw. At once Toothless swats him into the water again, tumbling him into the next wave; he knows exactly how hard he can hit, to knock Hiccup down without harming him.

The little dragon comes up spluttering, sea-slime and sand in his fur, and hesitates not a moment before leaping straight at Toothless.

Toothless puffs his chest out _smug _and _hough_s laughter. Hiccup's pounce does not move him even a pawstep away from the edge of the water, guarding his way to drier land as if it were the entrance to a treasured nest.

The dragon-feral waves a clenched paw at him, flipping onto his back and writhing like an upturned hatchling, yipping _fight fight fight fight!_ undercut by _play play play splash yuck here you this – _a pawful of sea slime splats across Toothless' nose – _gotcha see-there take-that I win yes laughter!_

The black dragon, his fangs safely hidden, snaps up that waving paw and holds it tight. Hiccup grabs for his tongue, and Toothless licks the paw relentlessly even as he dances aside, dragging Hiccup with him through the waves like a seal caught by the end of its nose. He tastes like the mussels Hiccup dug up earlier – shallow holes riddle the muddy beach just like holes through stone scar the island – and Toothless scorched open with tiny blasts of flame. Over that, there is thin fish blood and ocean; there must be fish in the shallows after all.

Yowling _no cold wet lemme-go you love-you give-me-that no_, Hiccup twists and wriggles and kicks at Toothless' chest like a captured rabbit, light blows only in play. The memory of chasing rabbits lolls Toothless' tongue out in a grin he cannot bite back, and his other half tugs his paw free with a shriek of _triumph_.

He scampers past Toothless and promptly stumbles into one of the holes where the little clams were, rolling to a stop quite covered in sand just dry enough to cling.

His tail waving, Toothless leaps after him and pins him down with a single paw.

_I win look me win yes certain-sure here win smug happy love-you good try_, Hiccup chirrups and yelps and gestures. Toothless licks him until he splutters, and subsides into the muddy sand at Hiccup's side.

His paw is on Hiccup's chest already; it is easy to pull him close and keep him there, racing heart against burning heart-fires. Toothless rests his nose on his beloved-self's shoulder, filling all his senses with the partner who has been beside him all his life, who is the only world he knows, the only world he _needs_.

Here he can smell only Hiccup's heart-familiar _self-_scent, and not the bubbles of a marsh where he cannot see what lies beneath.

_Careful_, he signals unconsciously, in body and breath and the shadow in his eyes. _Wary watchful careful-you unsure defensive you mine love-you look where smell that?_

Against his ribs, Hiccup rolls into a crouch, ready to leap or flee, soft-claws digging into the sand. With seawater dripping from his matted fur and salt drying on his scales, the laughter of a good game still shining in his eyes and a smear of slime darkening the ripple of red-gold scales twining around one shoulder towards his heart, he should be no fiercer than any hatchling.

But Hiccup is as much a wild thing as Toothless, and he comes alert like a predator disturbed.

_Where?_ he asks, scanning the half of the shoreline he can see; Toothless raises his head a little way and checks the other half. There is still nothing there, only stones and the thin, scraggly branches of distant trees.

_Uncertain_, Toothless answers with a low growl, but does not bare his fangs. He whines _disappointment_, soft and hurt, the whimper of a flock-mate rejected by a friend.

Hiccup's silence, his stillness, are an answer all their own, and Toothless drops his head to nudge his nose against his beloved-one's face, murmuring _comfort_ and _reassurance_, _love-you-always you mine_ sure and certain and absolute.

_Always_, Hiccup says in silence, where they touch.

The little dragon shakes himself all over, brushing sand from his scales and chirping _hey!_ when Toothless licks a missed speck away with a darting tongue. He scratches under Toothless' chin until Toothless cannot keep his hindleg from kicking, and tumbles away laughing when the black dragon pounces at him.

_Come-catch-me,_ Hiccup whistles to him, pawing at the air in challenge, and darts away towards the sheer cliff beyond the rocks. The broken stones are jagged and treacherous, their sides damp with lichen and dew. He will have to be very quick and agile to be faster than Toothless, who can leap further and fly right past him, so the black dragon does not mind letting his heart-self run a little way first.

When Hiccup reaches the rocks, Toothless bounds after him –

And _she _is there.

She fades from the air like mist burning away, if mist could draw itself together again and be a dragon. She was not there, and now she is. She blends like a hiding-hunting cousin, Toothless sees now, in a glance. So that was how they lost her, when she and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ fled the Starving Man who they have left far behind now!

_She_ has left her paws behind, he sees; they are sand-colored still. Her tracks beneath her vanished paws are like his strewn all around the shoreline, but smaller, and not so deep, and she has no Hiccup-self to mix his pawprints with hers. Her tracks are very empty – and now they are full of her own paws.

In the muted light of the overcast day, her scales are as white as a fresh bone licked very clean, her face a drawing left unfinished. She stands before Toothless – _she stands between them!_ – with her wings folded and her head lowered, _appeal_ clear in her eyes as she seeks his.

Toothless does not slow, and he does not startle, and he does not meet her eyes.

He veers around her without so much as a glance, folding his wings in tight and cutting his tail aside so it does not brush against her. As if she were not there, he keeps running.

She is No One, and Hiccup is almost to the cliff _already_!

* * *

No One slinks around a twisted chunk of driftwood, crying _pitiful_, and Toothless turns away. He dabbles a paw at the crab they have caught, chasing it away from the pool it lunged from when Hiccup ventured too close. Its claws click shut and miss his, and Hiccup taps its shell with a chirrup of _amusement_.

_Small,_ he gestures, and springs away when it turns on him.

_Big fierce small that careful-you-careful_, Toothless postures, rolling his eyes _mocking_, and purrs when Hiccup darts around the enraged crab to sprawl beneath his jaw and roll himself _love-you!_

Somewhere else, No One whimpers _confusion_, but they will not hear her. She is No One.

_Brave you need-you love love love mine Toothless-beloved_, Hiccup sings to him, and Toothless sings their truest selves back to him, dancing _joy _and _together _and _you me we us_, the crab forgotten as it escapes, the wraith who does not exist cringing unseen.

She crouches in the middle of the shoreline, every line of her howling _unhappy_ – if she were there. Hiccup and Toothless pad around her as they play and hunt and groom each other, warbling _welcome _to the sun whenever it peeks from behind the persistent clouds. They notice her no more than they would notice a stone.

Except that if a stone made such sounds, Toothless would prowl around it very curiously; he would pat at it and leap at it, and spring away whistling _wonder _if it turned to face him. They would climb on a stone in their way as they chased each other around it. Hiccup would perch on it and bask in the sun as his fur dried, watching sleepily as droplets darkened the stone and faded again. Toothless would dive from it in low flights over the ocean, searching for another fish when Hiccup claimed _no-more_ with a dismissive flip of a paw.

They do not; she is No One.

She watches them with her earflaps lowered and her eyes dulled _misery_, curled up into a very small huddle. Careless of her gaze, black dragon and dragon-feral breathe _devotion_ to each other one moment and pounce into very silly play-fights the next, tumbling and shrieking and forgetting it all to chase gulls who _dare _to descend on this beach that is theirs for now. She signals _unhappiness _deep and pure and endless, but they do not look at her to see.

She is No One, and she may watch them if she wishes, but they do not have to watch her in return.

Toothless notices her only with righteous irritation, sneezing her scent from his nose. He knows she is unhappy; it must be _miserable _to be No One.

The dragons of their flock live in peace under the rule of their great king – but they _live_, and so the Nest is the ground on which uncountable fights have been begun and lost and won and begrudged. Dragons squabble, and they argue, and they make enemies at whom they will sneer _most _despicably when their paths cannot help but cross. They bicker, and they feud. They race to the defense of their friends when some flock-mate or another is stolen from or insulted or pushed aside. They sulk and they scheme. They chase each other through the nest in great offended ambushes, or they push each other aside in vengeance for past snubs.

Home would be very boring, otherwise, Toothless thinks.

But sometimes the wrong done is so great that the flock cannot bear it, and when that happens, the flock can turn away.

A dragon who is No One is not seen, is not spoken to, is not heard, is not helped, is not hunted with, is not welcome to sleep beside another or invited to join their flock-mates in play. If No One cries _lonely_, No One is left to cry.

Sometimes No One flees, flying far away and living alone until the flock forgets, and then they can sneak home and pretend they were never No One at all.

But more often, No One will howl their _sorry_ for all to hear, even if their flock-mates do not acknowledge them. No One will crawl to whoever they have hurt so greatly, and whine to be forgiven.

She does not _have _to be No One, this little white dragon Toothless does not see as he steals Hiccup's best seagull feather from where his beloved-one has placed it very carefully in the sand. He darts around her when she slinks away, underfoot, to the rocks. He whistles to Hiccup, waving the feather _c'mon this I take bad me mischief-playing,_ when he sees the dragon-feral's eyes shift to follow her and grow dark with _unhappiness _that matters much, much more than _hers_.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ run together beneath her mournful eyes as she rests her head on her paws, unobserved. They warble and chirp determined _delight _to each other while she whimpers quietly to herself, unheard.

If she narrows her eyes _thinking_, let her.

If she tips her head to one side _intrigue_, let her.

If she shifts her eyes to track _maybes_ not yet hatched, let her.

If she taps her tail _wait-to-pounce_, let her.

_No-sad_, Toothless hums quietly, seeing _enough_ in Hiccup's signals and coiling around him. They settle to the sand together, and Toothless purrs _comfort _that Hiccup echoes back to him in a broken rumble. _Beloved-you always here us mine patience why sad?_

Hiccup nestles beneath his jaw, hiding his face against Toothless' throat and hunching his shoulders. Toothless can almost see his wings that _should _be there – it is the way of things that they are not, but sometimes the way of things is wrong – mantling around him, blotting out the world until only they remain.

But they have wings together, so Toothless wraps his around them both.

_She_, Hiccup signals, glancing over his shoulder; he cannot see No One, but he knows where she is. He has always known, for all he pretends otherwise. _She sad us hurt I hurt here low bad reluctant uncertain…_ He bares his small fangs _frustration_, and hisses _resignation_; _anger _sparks in his breath like flames.

Toothless sighs over him, his own heart undeterred. She has cried very pitifully, but she is still wrong. Her rejection of his Hiccup-_beloved-self _is a betrayal not to be tolerated, worse for how badly he had _wanted _her to be right. Instead she is a twisted reflection, a shadow that lies, just like Hiccup's shadow lies to him when the sun catches him unawares.

It is hard for his sweet-souled Hiccup to see another be No One, Toothless knows, but he cannot forgive her. Not until he knows she understands, and until she has learned – as others have – that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _are one and the same, or not at all. She cannot cry to half of him for sympathy, and recoil from the other with her eyes fear-dark enough to swallow the empty moon.

_Not-important_, Toothless snorts, peeking past his own wings. She springs to her feet, all her signals shouting _hope!_ but he still does not look at her.

_You_, he says, _you Hiccup-mine best-beloved-one together us you mine love-you-most-of-all_. He meets Hiccup's green eyes with his own, staring _pay-attention _very sternly until the dragon-feral's eyes crinkle _amused_.

_Cloudjumper you_, he clicks, purring.

Toothless breathes, _So-there! _at him, and scrambles to his feet, dislodging Hiccup from his perch across his forepaws. He spreads out his wings, raising his head and humming _sun look sun there up up up sun good want you sun?_

His jaw set _determination_, pure _stubbornness_ wrinkling his snub nose, Hiccup _whuff_s a curious challenge. _Flying?_

Flying always helps when something troubles them, or harries their flanks with pestering snaps. They belong in motion, in the sky. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _can outfly _anything_, even sad.

_C'mon_, Toothless invites him, dipping a shoulder Hiccup gladly leaps to, scrambling past the Lost One still riding close against Toothless' spine. It does not bother him to have it there anymore. It feels almost like Hiccup, only quieter.

But Toothless would not trade his other half's whistle of relief and _joy-in-flight _and pure exhilaration, as the black dragon springs into the air as fast as falling and races for the sun, for anything – or anyone – in the world.

* * *

_Wait!_ she cries, bursting from the cloud they have just left behind them. Hiccup glances back – he knows he should not, but he does – to see her scrambling for height. The tip of her wing catches the trailing edge of Toothless' wake, and she wobbles in the sky like a cloud herself, but she does not tumble and fall. She catches herself, and beats her wings harder.

She is chasing them, and Hiccup lowers himself to Toothless' shoulders, feeling the memory of her jaws snap closed above his skull. _Faster! _he urges Toothless-_love _without a sound. He tenses as if he could make Toothless' wings beat faster with nothing but his wish to do so, that it might be _his _muscles straining to carry them both from her sight.

Veering and soaring, she catches a gust of wind and swings wide, flaring her wings to catch Toothless' eye. The sky swats her aside in a dramatic, stuttering roll – no, she meant to do that; Hiccup recognizes the way she flies in every detail. He has seen and felt Toothless do the same all his life.

_Here! See me! _she shrieks, pleading.

Part of Hiccup wants to call back _see-you you here come-along!_ to her, because part of him, buried deep inside where it slunk away to die, still wants to creep _guilty_. _They _could have been No One, not long ago.

There are things the flock cannot forgive, wrong things done that endanger them all, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _had done a very wrong thing, even if they had not meant to. They led the Knotted Man, the enemy of all dragons and the hater of all things, to the Nest itself. And at his tail had come an Alpha to challenge their king and crush their flock into fierce ones and broken ones, to tear their world apart like a prey-beast slain.

They could have been less than No One; they could have been No One forever with no hope of forgiveness. Being No One must be like dying, like emptiness inside with no food ever, like heart-fires guttering and going out, and not a single flock-mate to mourn.

But the Nest had not fallen, and their king had triumphed. He had looked into them and judged them _**forgiven**_.

But this _she _– she had turned on him with hatred in her eyes, and seen him only for what he was not, and _that _is a wrong Hiccup cannot allow to stand. She has struck at the deepest heart of him, at all that he is. The hurt of turning away from her is little more than hatchling-scratches, after that.

_Wait wait no me here yes me here want yes you notice-me me here!_ No One cries, and Toothless growls. Hiccup can feel him shudder all over.

Beneath the howl of the wind all around them, and the shriller sound of No One wailing, Hiccup taps his paws against Toothless' shoulders and murmurs a suggestion, an invitation, a _shall-we?_

Toothless' laughter is a rumble like a purr, and mischief sparks his eye as he glances back at Hiccup. _Ready?_

_Ready!_ Hiccup signals back to him, twines his paws a little more tightly into their flying-with –

And Toothless races off into the sky as if, all this time, he has been only standing still. The sky rips at their scales and snatches the breath from their mouths, and all the world turns into the rush of flight and power and speed, blurring blue.

Somewhere behind them, there is a whistle of furious _outrage_. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup sees No One blur and fade and vanish, and _anticipation _hums through his body, flicking out to Toothless in warning. But she will have to catch them, first!

All dragons chase, and in their flock, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _have no rivals at the game of swerve and dip and dodge and tumble and leap and spring. They are faster than _anyone _in their nest, and they never lose their place in the sky even if they spin very fast and upside down. When no one will play with them, they hover high above the ice spires of home and watch for a chase they can leap into uninvited, bursting out from ambush to rap their claws against the noses and flanks of surprised flock-mates, racing away before they can be caught and scolded.

The joy of a chase sinks into Hiccup, driven there by the roaring wind, and the darkness of No One's fear of him blows away with it. Pressed low to Toothless' back, feeling his wings and his heart beating strongly as if they were his own body, eyes narrowed against the wind but alert for a flicker of a pounce – here Hiccup is most alive and most himself.

A patch of the sky just beside them does not move quite right, it is too close when it should be far away – _there!_ Hiccup signals. Toothless is already tumbling, curving away from her in a long arc as she shakes sky-colors from her wings and opens her sky-always eyes again. Undeterred, she follows them, matching Toothless' arc.

He snorts – not at her, she is No One – and _yowp_s derisively; it was not such a sharp spin. Without warning, Toothless dives, streaking for the waves far below in a headlong plunge. The air screams, to see them fall.

No One screams too. Her dive is shallower, Hiccup sees in a glance past Toothless' tail, but she follows them still.

Toothless snaps out of the dive rumbling in _irritation_, and Hiccup whines _wary _with him. it would have been a very good joke indeed, and a lesson to No One for challenging them, if she had followed them all the way and splashed into the ocean. She was not bold enough – or perhaps she was clever enough not to, because now _she _is high above them, and they are flying beneath her like prey to be pounced upon, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do not like that at all.

_That way!_ Hiccup signals with a shove as she stoops above them – Toothless veers to one side in a sharp zag, slipping past her with a challenging snarl. She stumbles in the air, her tail fouling beneath her for a moment until she can find her balance again. They cut close enough to hear her gasp as her scales shimmer ocean-dark, but at once they are away again, climbing to the high sky.

If No One thinks she can outfly them, they will show her how wrong she is here too!

The hurt of her rejection is still a sore point, a bruise beneath his scales, but as they fly and dodge and challenge her to follow, Hiccup cannot restrain his delight. He can only hide it, chirruping _laughter _into Toothless' earflaps as they swivel, tracking No One through the air around them.

No One is fast! She stops in an instant, as if she has flown through the same narrow tunnels riddled with stone teeth that they have. When she hovers, it is neat and still – when she darts away, slewing around a gust of wind, her movements are precise, not a wingbeat out of place. When _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ – in flight they are most a single self – dive into a cloud to escape her, she stays on them, flying at their wing as if she were a flock-mate truly.

But when Hiccup glances over at her – only to see where she is, so they can veer away – he finds her eyes fixed not on Toothless, but on him, her head tilted _curiosity_ even in headlong flight.

She meets his eyes, and he sees _something _flash through them…but he does not know that expression of hers yet. He cannot trust that her face will move the same as Toothless' – they are alike, but not the same. Even You, You-Also, and You-As-Well, who are _very _alike, do not signal all the same.

They burst from the cloud into clear air, and for a moment the sky before them is empty and wide, and then No One darts in front of Toothless, wings outspread. She soars up and back like a leaf caught by a gust of wind, as if she could never fall.

Toothless snorts _defiance_ and _not-impressed_ at her, and flips himself over backwards.

Quick as lightning, his tail flicks a breath from her nose, there and gone before she can bite.

Upside down and unafraid, they fall. Hiccup clings to Toothless' shoulders and the safety of the flying-with they made together, that they tested and broke and made again until they could fly wild-crazy just like this, in ways _no _dragon would dare.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _dare _always_.

An instant later, Toothless snaps out his wings, his long tail slicing round and flipping them both upright again with a skull-rattling jolt. The maneuver sends them streaking beneath No One as she yelps pure _surprise_, all the speed of falling added to a single powerful beat of Toothless' wings that sends them soaring far and away.

And for a few wingbeats, No One is truly forgotten as the dragon-pair chirrup and click and yip _rejoicing_ to each other, praising each other gleefully. Toothless spins them into a sideways roll, tumbling them around and around, ocean and sky spinning freely over their heads.

A fireblast, exploding far too close to be chance but too far to burn, sends Toothless scrambling away, dragon and dragon-feral howling _not-like bad that no fire not-fair you stop no no!_ in matching voices.

The empty sky shimmers and shudders and turns itself into the white dragon, gliding towards them with her nose all wrinkled _showoff!_

Hiccup does not hesitate: No One or not, he yowls _scorn _at her, and nudges Toothless _c'mon!_

They will show off all they want, if they want to!

With all the tireless energy of a good chase, the dragon-pair streak across the sky, laughing to each other. Hiccup trusts to his dragon-self to keep their flight unpredictable, anticipating Toothless' movements through long familiarity and signals too small for him to consciously notice. He watches the sky for Shi – for No One – as she dives at them and tries to jostle Toothless from his flight. She is smaller, and if she strikes him _she _will fall, but Toothless will not let her strike him, and jostles himself.

But that is fine; it is a glorious thing to fly wild and quick and crazy, tracing a broken path like a scribbled line all over the sky.

They are high in the air, above the thick clouds in the fullest sun, fighting a current in the air that wants to shake them both like hatchlings and drop them into the clouds again, when the white dragon reappears high above them, stooping to pounce like a hatchling on a mouse.

Hiccup has been a predator for longer than he can remember, and in a glance, he sees where she means to strike, if they let her.

_Trust me_, he says to Toothless, a single touch and a long-familiar signal, rumbling a purr that has meant _mischief _too many scoldings to recall.

He can see Toothless' _always love-you careful dearest ready now_ in his smallest movements, even as the dragon-feral untangles his paws from the flying-with. No One dives towards them as he crouches ready for her, and her eyes go wide as she realizes they have not spun away from her, that she cannot stop in time, that she will strike them –

_Down!_ Hiccup orders, slapping a paw against Toothless' shoulder.

And as Toothless dives, Hiccup leaps.

Hiccup has lived wild all his life, and he has paced along the border of starvation every snowed-in winter. He is even thinner than he might have been, in another life. The bones of his face show more clearly than they should, and he has marked off each of his ribs in turn, waiting for the sun to return and the flock's prey with it.

But he has lived climbing across cave ledges and jumping to perches otherwise beyond his reach, running alongside dragons and refusing to be left behind, and he is stronger than he looks.

When he jumps, he jumps high.

Toothless plunges, and No One scorches between them, so close Hiccup could have kicked her nose had he meant to. And Hiccup reaches out to catch the wind in his own outstretched wings.

And when No One catches herself, scrambling in the air to understand how her pounce had missed, she looks up to find Hiccup hovering above her, gliding wings outstretched, riding the river of air just as Toothless had. It brushes along his scales, testing him, and he twitches one paw up to match it.

_Look-at-ME! _Hiccup screeches her own cry back to those shocked blue eyes, flooding the sound with all his hurt and anger like burning, flowing stone.

He is a dragon, he is a dragon, _he is a dragon_, and she has no right to doubt him! They could be friends and flock-mates for now – they could be _close-kin_, even – if she would only see him for what he is!

_Don't-understand what this surprise surprise disbelief confusion what you you there look-there he? you? no strange how what?_ No One signals and cries. She stares so, the chase forgotten, that she nearly falls from the sky when Toothless circles back around and – very gently, _much _more gently than he could – nudges her aside.

Toothless blows the smallest of fire-blasts towards him, and Hiccup chirps _good like you good thanks look laughter good-joke!_ as the hot air lifts him up again. With a friendly wind and a high-up start, enough speed and Toothless' fire, he can fly quite far even on the wings he made. They are not as good as true wings, but one day they will be right.

Now, with another in their sky, Toothless glides to match him, and Hiccup alights on his dragon-partner's shoulders easily, furling his wings again.

He flares one of them at No One, first.

_Well? _Toothless snorts at her, fangs _just _bared in challenge. He falls back into the sky-river, willing to find out where it will take the two of them. That No One shares it with them is not important; wherever the sky-river goes, Hiccup and Toothless will go together.

She is a pretty flyer, this she-dragon, and she plays good chasing-games, but Hiccup's dragon heart is still set _determination _against her.

But perhaps –

If she can –

_Us!_ Hiccup signals to her, gesturing to this half of himself and to Toothless both the same. He roars the sound that belongs only to their faraway flock, mimics the snarl that Toothless uses when he will not back down: _is so!_

His challenge set, Hiccup turns his shoulder to the white dragon in a deliberate shun, and whistles _let's go!_ to Toothless.

No One lowers her few earflaps and whines, but she drops back and blurs from view.

She follows them, they know, but they do not drive her away.

* * *

Toothless glides to an easy landing, bounding across the flat of the high, lonely sea spire that juts up proud and defiant from the ocean. Ripples in the water all around warn against diving from the high single peak. There are broken stones hidden below the waves. Maybe they fought, the tall rocks that stood here once in the deep ocean, and this one triumphed; stones are a mystery.

Leaping from Toothless' shoulders, Hiccup paws idly at the thin sedge grass and dried-out lichen, pretending interest in the nearly bare peak. He glances _expectation_ to Toothless, who blinks _waiting patience me no whatever not-interested_ and yawns elaborately.

They do not have to wait for long.

No One has hovered in their wake the whole way here, and now she folds her wings and drops to the broad expanse of flat stone. Her claws cut through the thin coat of blue-grey-green, and her paws blur to match as she cringes a _sorry!_ they could recognize from across the horizon.

_Wait you here please sorry-me you wait trying yes I fix, _she says. They have flown with her now; they have learned her smallest signals that all dragons flying together see, so that they know when to turn and how to fly close without crashing. No One glances from one half of them to the other. _You yes? you-both yes? stay?_

_Where?_ Hiccup gestures, peering around the spire-top. Hatchlings playing hiding-games very badly would chirrup and burble and screech laughter, and he would look past them all and pretend he did not see or hear them. _Who there strange don't-know where you hear Toothless-beloved no?_

His dragon-love shrugs elaborately, shuttering his eyes _bored_ and licking one paw clean to swipe over his head.

_Yes you wait me return here hurry me I go!_ No One dances, eyes brimming with _hope_. She spins quick enough to trip over her tail and dives from the spire-top; Hiccup spots her wings flashing as she circles the spire and drops from view.

Something bitter and heavy and clinging that has lived in his chest takes a deep breath now, melting away like ice beneath the first spring wind.

_Maybe?_ he chirps to Toothless, _hopeful_.

_Maybe,_ Toothless echoes back to him, and licks him too.

All the sand from the stony beach has blown away, and Hiccup touches his own nose to his scales with pleasure and pride. Mostly he is a black dragon all over, like Toothless-_heart_, but he carries his flock with him. Here are Cloudjumper's scales wrapped around his shoulder like a wing-claw, and Small Friend's twined around one foreleg. She had stared, fascinated and flattered, as he stitched them into place, just where she would twine her tail to pull him from some danger or into mischief at her side. A golden patch of She Sun's scales is splashed across his flank, marking a wound healed while she watched over him. Twisted Paw's deep purples, every scale different, cut a thin stripe along his back. He patched a wound to his hindleg with Temper's colors, since it was Temper who had torn his scales; Temper could fix them.

He sighs, slumping to the ground against Toothless' side, as a great longing creeps over him for a patch of winter-white scales too.

When No One – still – returns to the peak of the sea spire, leaping up from one of the ledges below, she has a fish in her jaws. It flaps weakly as she lowers her head, eyes upturned beseechingly.

The little white dragon whines _sorry!_ and when Hiccup looks at her, she meets his eyes, blue to green. She stares at his exposed face and his bare paws, and he raises his jaw _defiant_ under her stare.

One paw at a time, her tail dragging, her wings low, she slinks across the space between them. She stops at the edge of Toothless' shadow, glancing from one half of the dragon-pair to the other, and she drops the barely-twitching fish at Hiccup's feet.

_For you!_ she says, nosing it towards him. _Me sorry sorry sorry very-much-so you good like you want-to please you yes fine good sorry me help this-here yours I give!_

_Joy _churning in him like a lake full of splash-fighting dragons, Hiccup scrambles to her, purring _forgiveness_. He must check himself before he leaps upon her, but she stays very still and does not tremble as he runs a paw across her forehead, petting her smooth scales and chirruping _gratitude_.

All he asks of her – all he has _ever _asked, and surely it is not so much! – is to be accepted for what he is.

She freezes beneath his touch, but she does not recoil. When he urges her _up you good hello-again see you you here yes certain-sure good you c'mon you-with-us welcome-now!_ she lifts her head again and stands, sniffing _curious you what you strange fine-though not-worried _at his fur and bare skin.

_Mine!_ Toothless scolds her as she perches beside them, while Hiccup shreds the fish with claws and teeth. _Hiccup mine beloved-self dearest-best love-always you not-afraid you silly he dragon good dragon clever yes brave best-of-all love yes you like yes-should together yes us always._

_You here good though_, he admits, breathing _relief_ that she may be their friend again. Hiccup snorts _laughter_ and rolls his eyes, offering a pawful of fish for his dragon-self to gulp down; his own mouth is too full to say more.

Hiccup holds out the rest of the fish to Shiver, and she tentatively licks it from his paw.

* * *

The fight is not forgotten, but it is _over_. The scar remains, but the wound is healed. And Hiccup and Toothless have so much to ask her! Their questions swarm over her like ants across a reaching paw, scattering all over and stopping for nothing at all.

_You hurt you us worried you fine this sorry bad sympathy ugh fine patience not-so-bad_, Hiccup clicks and chirrs, whining _sorrow _over the wounds on her paws where chains have worn her scales away.

_You here how why you new-remarkable look you surprise disbelief where? where? you safe-nest you here?_ Toothless wonders over her, desperate to know where she is from and how she has come here. _Look!_ he says, flicking his nose at their near-matching shadows spread out over the flat stone of the spire-top. Shiver has moved nearer the edge of the sea stack, humming surprised _happiness _when they joined her. Now their shadows have the entire expanse of stone to stretch across.

_Yes?_ Shiver answers, cocking her head _confusion._ _That-there not-remarkable why? you-though – look you! _She sets her paw by his – Hiccup clicks a mother's _scolding_ and follows it – and nudges it aside with her nose. _Enough you me fine_, she adds to Hiccup, pushing him away gently. _Not-hurting see I touch._ She taps her tongue to the shallow wounds, and does not flinch.

_Wonder_, she says of Toothless' scales, and remembers to coo the same to Hiccup. _This_, she says, indicating their black scales, _this surprising good very-much-so!_

Toothless preens, pleased, and Hiccup ceremoniously smears lichen across his dragon-heart's shoulder.

Shiver's eyes crinkle in a smile that seems to surprise even her.

_You flying you good pleased impressed – _

_Maybe-so_, Toothless interrupts Hiccup smugly, unwilling to relinquish their status as the best fliers they know.

– _fly you fly far? Here you-strange us surprised you new-strange you there far-away?_ Hiccup asks. She must have come from very far away – and she is Like Them after all! he realizes, feeling his fires inside burn brightly with satisfaction he had never known he missed until it came to him. He presses a paw to his chest, but he cannot feel them as he can Toothless' fires.

_You other-you other-you other-you? You flock good-safe-home where? lonely? _Toothless croons _sympathy_. _Us Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss together-self always-sure no no lonely-sad never – you?_

Hiccup roars out their flock-sound and gestures _there, there, there, there, there_, spreading his paws wide and cowering low to show the incomprehensible _many _of their flock. _Faraway_, he indicates, crooning _wistful_ that is _homesick_, the cry of a dragon looking towards home with longing.

_Where?_ Shiver asks, eyes bright with nothing but _curiosity_.

Toothless always knows which way home is – they got lost _once_, when they were much smaller, but never since. He tips his head to one side, eyes shuttering as he searches deep within himself for the direction that pulls at him, and flicks his nose in the way they would fly, if they were to fly straight home never veering from their course. _That way_.

_Us we go us flying searching-looking flying far looking us brave yes flying best-of-all wandering far_, Hiccup explains.

Shiver's eyes go wide, and she backs away, barely a shuffle. _Me?_ she asks disbelievingly. _You-both searching-looking ME here you?_

_No_, Toothless denies, but assures her _found-you you here happy-anyway welcome new-remarkable amazement_.

A ripple of color washes across her scales, sky-pale blues and shimmering purples – oh, her colors are signals! Hiccup realizes, mewling with delight and envy. She arches her neck _preening _the way Toothless does when he is pleased with himself, so those colors might mean _complimented_.

_Why-then?_ Shiver asks.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ hesitate, and they glance _doubt _at each other, an entire complex debate unfolding between them in nothing but tiny gestures and expressions. They believe themselves to be a single self, and at times they can almost read each other's minds.

She has not yet noticed the Lost One on Toothless' shoulders still –

And she was so afraid already –

Can they risk frightening her again –

She will leave them and never return, and it will be _their _fault this time –

She _asked_ –

She can be brave, she came back –

It is a sad thing –

It is their sad thing –

If they show her that they are not afraid –

She _asked_, and they cannot lie to her –

They can try –

They can only try –

_This_, Hiccup gestures, walking his paws up Toothless' side to pull the Lost One from its carry-straps.

_Sad-sad-sad_, Toothless whimpers, howling _grief_ and _lost _that is _dead_.

It takes some time for Shiver to understand, but when Hiccup sets the pitiful, savaged skin before her, petting it _sorry_ and whining over it as he would over a never-hatched egg, Shiver stretches out her nose towards it inquisitively.

She touches it, opening her mouth to breathe in its scent. Hiccup can see the moment when she realizes what it is, and the horror of it, because the dark red of old blood shimmers across her scales, there and gone in a flicker. At once, she leaps back as if a bee had stung her nose, paws stumbling, her tail tangling beneath her hindlegs. The little white dragon scrambles, bristling without spine-fins to tremble, trying only to get away. Her back paws nearly go over the edge of the cliff, and Hiccup is already reaching out to catch her by one flailing forepaw when she leaps up into a wary hover, instead.

Shuddering, Shiver alights further away from them. Her sides ripple with the colors of meat left to rot, and fade to pure white again. _That?!_ she indicates, trembling _wrongness _and _fear_. _Why that what how ugh UGH dead that sad why dragon there sad hurting why? why? fear!_

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ whistle and cringe _agreement_, nuzzling the Lost One to show her that there is nothing to fear, only to grieve for. It is deeply, truly sad, and a strange thing, but it cannot bite or burn them. It is helpless, and they are protecting it as they would any dragon, they explain, coaxing her back towards them.

_Searching_, Toothless explains as Shiver shakes herself and licks nervously at her own scales, calming herself before slinking back to their sides. _This sad safe nest where? _

Hiccup echoes, _Where? don't-know sorry-sad determined-anyway we go this hide safe where?_

He asks without expectation of an answer. He simply does not want her to be afraid of it – it is not the Lost One's fault that it is scary – and to understand what they are doing.

_Oh!_ Shiver lights up, her scales flaring sunrise orange and sun yellow in a brief, excited burst. Her jaws part in a dragon's grin, _disbelief _in her eyes but _delight _flashing on her tongue. She licks her nose as if she could taste it there, and her earflaps perk up like she can hear a friend calling for her.

_I know!_

And as the dragon-pair stare at her in _disbelief_ of their own, Shiver tries to explain.

_Nest you safe-nest you faraway yes?_ she asks. She raises her head. _Nest me safe-nest faraway good safe I go you-too yes you c'mon you-both maybe?_

The white dragon spins in a tight circle, _excitement_, and bounces out of it with a whistle of _you watch!_ She prances, her tail waving, and chirrups a familiar signal: _attention!_

_What?_ Hiccup yips, sitting up in shock – that is _their _signal, that is how they tell their flock-mates they have a story to show!

_Nest mine_, Shiver declares, and coos _beautiful_, their praise for her shifting scales. _Yes yes yes very-much-so safe good no-danger no-threat never-never_. She raises one paw to show them the chafed-away scales, and snorts _never!_ again. _Nest mine many many that-shape_ – she looks at her shadow – _dragons fierce small big soft strange-maybe fine though together yes_.

She has a flock like theirs! A flock with many different dragons, all together, and other dragons like her! It is more than Hiccup and Toothless can believe – her story slaps into them like a hard splash into flat water, and they stare at her in matching shock.

_Nest mine_, she continues, _you look-at-me c'mon_. She bounds over the edge of the cliff, circling the spire as the dragon-pair race to watch her. Alighting on one of the ledges that cling to the sides of the spire, she taps her nose against the rock face and digs at the stone. _In_, she shows.

Her nest is in stone, in a cave, like theirs!

_You come!_ Shiver invites them, soaring back to the top of the spire and her amazed audience of two. _I go yes sure very-much-so want-want-want home wistful longing scared-here don't-like._ She crouches _too-big_ like a hatchling seeing the sky for the first time, and cries_ danger-warning strange enemy-creature hurting –_

Hiccup snarls _Viking_ – the sound that dragons use, not the mangled word _pfikingr_. He growls _enemy_. How does she not know this? All dragons know this!

_Trap-warning!_ Toothless shrieks, piercing and audible even far away. _Danger! Avoid!_

And the black dragon growls _human_, his fangs bared, and recoils _stay-away_.

There are humans they _can _approach. There are even humans they can turn their backs on. Humans who talk a little, who do not hurt dragons anymore – the dragon-pair can look to those humans for help sometimes.

But most humans frighten them, wild things that Hiccup and Toothless are, and always will.

Toothless lifts one paw from the stone, ready to swat and to run. But Shiver does not look at his Hiccup-_heart_, so he sets his paw down again with a muted grunt of _satisfaction_. If she had –

Well, then they would not be listening to her story anymore, or ever again.

_Beautiful_, Shiver sighs again, looking over her shoulder longingly. _Faraway though unsure scared danger where? want-want-want nest safe good home._

Far? A new place? A nest full of dragons like Shiver, who is indeed so much Like Them?

Hiccup and Toothless look at each other with _wonder_ humming through them, breathless with sudden excitement and a wild desperate hope, caught by Shiver's story as surely as any net.

_This?_ Toothless wonders hesitantly, pawing at the Lost One. _Sad lost this them you dragons frightened-maybe._ He whines _longing_. _This welcome there you nest?_

Shiver tips her head to one side, birdlike and familiar, her eyes bright and intrigued. If there is a little cunning in her expression as well, if a dull green shade of _scheming_ creeps across her scales, in her shadows, black dragon and dragon-feral do not notice it. Nor would they recognize it, if they did. In any case, the ripple of color quickly fades.

_You welcome there nest mine_, she says firmly. _You – _Her eyes turned on Toothless are wide with amazement, and she ducks her head almost _submissive_, the fins at the base of her tail flaring out. _That_, she points, tapping her nose against Toothless' black scales, _good good good certain-sure_.

Something unfamiliar clots in Hiccup's throat, hot and thick and seething, and he slinks to his dragon-self's side, pressing their shoulders together. He ducks his head beneath Toothless' jaw, fitting himself into the bigger dragon's shape to make them whole again, where he and he alone has always belonged.

_You-both_, Shiver adds, acknowledging him as well, but her gaze returns to Toothless. _You c'mon us go yes you guard brave fly us fly?_

Hiccup turns his face up to his Toothless-self just as his dragon-half twists his head to look down at him, and the light in their eyes is exactly the same. Their Lost One will be welcome in Shiver's nest, or it will not – that _they _might be welcome there, in a new place to explore and a new flock to meet, is the very sort of adventure their twinned hearts beat for.

Of course they will go with her.

All the traps in the world could not keep them away.

* * *

_To be continued._


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: Squeeb100** is working very hard to be my favorite fanartist for this story. Here's Hiccup in his modified scale-skins, "a black dragon too", but with reminders of his flock-mates: deviantart dotcomslash squeeb100/art/Story-Pelt-800310962

_**Freefall, **_**Part Eleven**

Standing on a table in the middle of the Great Hall, Astrid locks her hands into fists to keep them for reaching for the sheepskin wrapped around her shoulders, missing the weight of her bear cloak. With her cloak on her back she feels like a chief. Like she could stand in a long line of Berk's chieftains, each one of them wearing a similar one, Stoick by her side, and know that she belonged there.

But her drenched bear cloak is draped over a chair by one of the hearth fires, unattended as it dries. And as far as she can tell, Stoick is the only person on Berk _not _crowded in here, staring up at her. She misses him keenly, acutely, like a breath of ice around her face she has to grit her teeth against.

She doesn't have Stoick's shadow to stand in anymore, but she can feel it stretching out behind her. She's on her own. All she's got to fill that space, to own that shadow, is herself. And even though no one is yelling at her right this instant, Astrid has never felt more like a fraud.

"What d'ya mean, this isn't about us?" a voice splits the few heartbeats of silence that had fallen when she'd shouted just that. It breaks the dam on the stuttering, frantic buzz of conversation that sets the entire hall humming. Even the sound of a couple of hundred throats breathing can fill the room, and Vikings are rarely that silent. The dragons crowded into the hall with them, the bigger ones pushed back to the carved and shadowed walls and the Terrors squirming around feet and clambering over shoulders, blithely oblivious to the tension Astrid can almost taste, are the softest voices in here.

"Those ships out there didn't come here for us," Astrid repeats. The fires and the body heat of her tribe are high enough that she isn't trembling from her recent soaking, but she can feel a small puddle collecting beneath her. Her boots feel like she's wearing half the ocean, but she can't imagine how stupid she'd feel standing here barefoot.

If she's trembling, it's from the battle-rush still racing through her, the heartbeat song and the foot-pounding dance of her need to leap at her enemies with her axe in her hands, all the world bursting to life and roaring for death around her. It's from the blazing burn of knowing she's been had, that she was lied to and she nearly let them do it.

Feint all they like; she's got Grimmel and his thugs to rights now, and be damned if she'll let her people be deceived as well. If something happens to her – Astrid has no intention of letting anything happen to her, but she knows as well as any warrior on Berk that no one _plans_ for misfortune to strike them – at least everyone here will know what she knows.

Truth is bitter on her tongue, but better than honeyed lies.

"I thought this was about revenge," she goes on. With all eyes on her, she can't bring herself to say _but I was wrong_. "But then, why wouldn't they just smash us to rubble? They could," she admits, pointing at the shattered door. "There's enough of them. They don't even need all those ships, if revenge was all they wanted. A couple of them could strip Berk of rocks and throw them all back at us –"

An angry chorus of defiance and denial interrupts her. Someone bangs a beer mug on a table. Someone else yelps as beer sloshes on them. It won't be the last time that happens.

"– and if that happened, we'd deal with it. We'd survive, and we'd rebuild like we always have. That's what we do. But my point is, they haven't. And that's because it's not about us." She takes a deep breath. "This is about the dragons, everyone."

"Aye?" Gobber says, and Astrid focuses on him with relief, because if there's one thing she's sure of, it's that Gobber is on her side. She's Stoick's protégé, and he's Stoick's best friend, and more times than she can remember, he's stepped up to quietly push her in one direction or another when she'd missed something or gotten mired down in something that didn't matter.

Well. _Quietly_ hasn't always been the word Astrid would use. But he'll support her, if she's earned it.

"World's fulla dragons. Wha's so special about ours?"

Astrid points at him, gratefully. "That's just it. They're ours. They're friendly. And Drago's troops, that's what they need. That's why they're all here. They were using dragons, you see," she says for everyone who wasn't there, who didn't see what the mad warlord's terrible world in miniature was like, who hasn't dreamt about it for months and woken in a cold sweat. "Not like we do. They had dragons in chains with all the spirit beaten out of them, to pull carts, to fight their battles, to lift things, to serve."

"They were torturing them," Fishlegs chimes in. "It was horrible."

"And when I – when _we_ got a chance," Astrid continues, nodding at Fishlegs. Behind him, Ruffnut and Tuffnut hold up their fists in support; Snotlout rolls his eyes but raises his own, "we set those dragons free. And I thought it was over. But if we ran out of sheep, say – if someone came and took all our sheep, what would we do?"

"We'd take 'em back!" someone yells from the back.

"Yeah, sure, but what if we couldn't? What then?"

There's some thought, some crosstalk, from her audience, and then Eret calls out, "You'd send me out to market."

Laughter breaks out, and Astrid forces a smile, and then Spitelout adds, "Or we'd just raid 'em from someone else, more like. 'ey, wait –"

Agreeing with Spitelout makes this an even stranger day than usual, but Astrid says, "Right, we would. And that's what those ships are doing. They're raiding dragons from us. Anyone here have a dragon go missing lately? Or noticed one of them gone? I thought it was just that the ships were throwing things at us, and that the dragons were getting out of the way, but I think we were meant to think that. The rocks and the blaze balls were just an excuse for why our dragons weren't around."

She wonders, like a hollow thread wrapped around her throat, how many of the wilder ones they've lost already. The ones no one would notice, because no one knows the dragons who prowl Berk's forests and sea cliffs and the permanent mountainside snows and keep to themselves.

Do they talk to each other, the wild ones and the village dragons? Are they searching for their missing friends, and flying into the same trap that caught their fellows? How would she ever know?

So little separates the grieved-for from the forgotten.

"But why us?" Mulch complains as the cavernous room buzzes with people comparing notes, trying to figure out which dragons they've seen around recently and who might have vanished. Astrid can hear people denying it, hoping that their friends and the pests they're secretly fond of have just fled into the woods and are hiding in the deeper forest, that they'll come out as soon as the coast is clear. "Gobber said it, aye? Loads more dragons than ours."

"But ours are friendly," Astrid repeats. "Everyone here has fought a wild dragon, yeah? And if you haven't, hi there, you must be a kid. I'm here to make sure you never have to, unless you go out exploring someday. Ask your parents how bad it was. Who here wants to do that again?"

The room breaks out into a clamor of yelling and bragging, and Astrid rolls her eyes and waves for silence. "Hey! I didn't ask who _can _do that again. I know you all can. We're the Vikings of Berk and we're tougher than anyone! But which would you rather put a harness on? Stormfly?" Astrid points over their heads at her friend, who Astrid isn't allowing out of her sight until those ships are long, long gone, hopefully with holes in all their hulls and their lesson about messing with Berk learned this time. "Or some wild Nadder you've never met before?"

She gives them a moment to think about it, and goes on, "I'm not saying this isn't about vengeance, because it is. This is absolutely payback for stealing their dragons and kicking their butts. When I talked to that Grimmel guy they have in charge – no matter what Dagur thinks –"

Jeers go up on Dagur's behalf, and Astrid lets them. Any other day, she'd join in.

"– his crew snarled at me like they hated me. Right, guys?" she appeals to her crew of dragonriders.

"They weren't so tough," Snotlout denies. "Seen better growls on Roddy here. But yeah," he adds, fending off a halfhearted attack from the younger boy, who doesn't seem sure if he's been insulted or not and is mostly just dripping on him. Since Snotlout is wetter than he is, being too tough for something as comfortable as a towel, or something like that, it doesn't count for much.

"Our dragons are tame already," Astrid resumes. "That's so much less work that those soldiers have to do, and they'll get bitten a lot less, too."

"They lost their Alpha."

Astrid steps back and hopes no one heard the tiny splashing noise her boots just made. "Eret? What've you got?"

The onetime dragon trapper pushes his way through the crowd and clambers up onto the table, offering a half-bow to Gothi, who's sitting on the end of it watching the show. Astrid has no idea what the tiny old woman thinks of any of this, but then neither does anyone else. The Elder swats at his ankles with her walking stick, and he does a hasty half-skip that no one laughs at – everyone knows how much Gothi's stick _hurts_ – before strolling along the tabletop to join Astrid.

"I dunno how," Eret announces, "but Drago had an Alpha dragon answering to him. Big creature, called a Bewilderbeast. Sea dragon."

"A leviathan," Astrid says softly.

"Yeah. Heard you lot saw one here too." Nervous recognition blooms on every face in the room as Eret goes on, "Never a dull moment 'round these parts, is there? Any case, Alphas are boss dragons. Can tell other dragons what to do and make 'em do it, like magic. Drago was telling his to make his dragon army obey him. Attack, pull, sit pretty, fight each other. Prob'ly coulda made 'em dance, if he'd wanted."

A couple of heads – and two Zippleback heads – turn to look at Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who don't notice.

"No one in Drago's army had to do any training like you lot do. They don't know the first thing about it. Drago just waved a hand and his Alpha made it happen. It was sorta creepy, actually."

He grimaces, glancing around the room. "You all remember, don't you?" His sailors tend to stick together in clan meetings like this, finding their friends and their fellows just like everyone else does. The two groups of former dragon trappers mumble agreement as their captain goes on.

"We'd sail a cargo of dragons into the fleet, and all of a sudden they'd go quiet. You'd see 'em just giving up. They'd be snarling and flaming the whole trip, and then like that –" He snaps his fingers. "– silence. Like they'd been Drago's for weeks. And when Drago died, the Alpha went free. No more magic. I bet you anything those people out there, and anyone running 'em, have been tryin' to put together their own dragon army and failing a whole lot."

Eret shuffles his feet. "Gotta say. Astrid's right, 'bout why they're here."

"Thank you." Astrid knows she's right, but a bit of support never hurts. Unless she's suggested something crazy just to be sarcastic, and now the twins are enthusiastically making plans to do it anyway.

This may have happened a few times.

"Shoulda thought of it myself, 'cause the first time I saw Berk with dragons all over, acting all friendly, you know the first thing I thought?"

No one volunteers a guess, so he laughs shortly, without humor, and continues, "I said to myself, look at all these dragons, here for the taking."

The Great Hall fills with growls and outraged shouts, and Eret folds his arms over his chest defensively. "What?" he demands. "Have I laid one single hand on any of your dragons, since then? I get it. We're good. Look, if you told me about this place a few years ago, I would have laughed and bought you another drink."

"Yeah, and gotten someone else to pay for it!"

"Play your pebbles better, Midrag," Eret shoots back, but with a grin for his crewman as he waves his hands at all of Berk. "This? This is crazy. The whole thing. But you guys have made it work. I've been around a lot. Seen a lot of places, seen a lot of people figure out how to deal with dragons. The way you do it? It's pretty neat," he admits.

"You guys have invited the wolves in and asked them to be dogs – and they're doing it." He laughs again, a bit better. "Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. But man, is it fun to watch."

"Thanks, Eret," Astrid nods at him, and he clambers down, leaving her alone on her makeshift stage again.

"So, wait, that's what they're gonna do to Thunder?" Gustav asks from beneath his own sheepskin towel. "Make her like one of those soldier dragons you told us about, with armor nailed to her and no will of her own? Oh, hells no! Outta my way, I'm getting her back if I hafta –"

"We're getting all of them back, Gustav – you lot, stay put!" Most of his gang have been firmly grabbed by their parents anyway. "If they're really that bad at dragon training –"

"They're probably just yelling at your dragons," Eret interjects. "Hitting 'em, maybe."

"Enough helping, Eret. If they're really that bad," Astrid repeats, "we've got a chance. I don't know how yet, but I promise we're not going to let them steal our dragons. Those dragons are ours – and they're our friends. They could have left, but they chose to stay and try to live with us. They want peace as much as we do. As far as I'm concerned, they're Berkians too."

"How?" someone else says, and Astrid grits her teeth. She'd just said that she didn't know. "Can't attack 'em with ships."

"At least we tried!"

"And how'd that work out for ye, Gustav?" Gobber shoots back at him, an instant before Astrid can do the same.

"She's right, though," another woman's voice calls out, hidden in the crowd. "And if you fly more dragons out there, won't they just trap those, too?"

Astrid holds out a _slow down_ hand, much like she'd signal _stop _to a dragon. "We'll figure something out, I promise," she says. "I –"

She's interrupted by Fishlegs, of all people, and she almost doesn't hear him, his voice is so faint. "So is this our fault?"

She has to blink a few times. "What? What are you talking about?"

Fishlegs' face is ashy, his entire bulk seeming to droop like he wants to melt into the floor and join the puddles there. But he stands up, his expression crumpled into despair. He's holding his ragged, endlessly rewritten _Book _in both hands, like a lifeline. "We made them friendly," he says, and suddenly it's very, very quiet in here. "We made them tame. If the dragons didn't live with us, they'd be harder to catch, right? They'd be safer?"

"Fishlegs, no," Astrid blurts out, except as soon as she says it, she chokes on her words. That is what she'd said. But she can't find it in her to regret any of it. "We're not the bad guys here. We're doing something better now. We've got friends we never would have had, and we can do things with the help of dragons we never could before! Remember that rockslide at the quarry last autumn? Hey, Selig, tell everyone why you still have your leg!"

The burly man lumbers to his feet, both still at the end of both his legs even if he walks with a heavy cane these days. "Gronkle pulled tha' rock off me," he rumbles through his beard. Astrid doesn't think he's cut it since he was a boy. "Hovered it right away."

"Right. Madge, how's your little brother doing? Still having nightmares?"

She waves from a corner. "Nope! Sleeps with a Terror on either side, and says they'll eat any gnomes that try to pinch him. Thanks for finding them for him."

"You bet. Thanks for taking those two off my hands. And off my head." She gets a bit of a chuckle for that.

"Nobody made _Fearsome_ friendly!" Snotlout yells, and since this is an obvious fact, no one argues with him.

It's given Astrid a moment to come up with something to reassure Fishlegs. "Because they live with us, they've got people who _care _when they're captured, and who'll fight to set them free!"

A cheer goes up, and for a moment Astrid's spirit rides it, feeling her people's support behind her and a course ahead to inspire them. A week of siege has ground her down and blunted her edges already, but a rescue? That's something to fight for. That's a goal to achieve and sand to throw in the eyes of people who think they can come here and brush the Vikings of Berk aside while they take what they want.

Not on Astrid's watch.

And then it starts to crumble.

"But you've seen what's out there!" Grandpa Nokkvesson bellows. He's still got a good voice for a creaky-looking old man. Must be all the sons he has to ride herd on. "You heard the chief! Enough of them and enough power to wipe us out if we fight them. So why play their game? What'd you say that man said, Chief? On the ship those stupid brats attacked?"

Astrid takes a deep breath, and regrets sharing that detail. She knows just which comment he means. "He told me to stay out of the way."

"And then they'll leave, right?"

"That's what he said, but –"

"So, what, you want us to fight a war you just said we can't win, for _dragons?_ They're just _dragons_, aye? Pretty pets nowadays, if you like them, but I didn't fight those beasts all my life to lose any of my boys _saving_ them!"

"Coward!" someone shouts, and a corner of the room dissolves into chaos as one of the younger Nokkvessons throws a knockout punch and the stunned man's friends pile on him.

Arguments break out all across the room, Vikings jostling each other and quarreling with their neighbors over how to get the captured dragons back, how to make the ships go away, whether it's even worth trying to get them back, how dragons are useful to have around and pretty awesome too, what pests dragons still are, whose face is asking to get punched, who's drinking out of my ale mug, and also what your cousin said about my grandfather that one time.

"– beasts are just making us a target!" Astrid hears from somewhere in the fray. "What, are we gonna have every dragon hunter on the ocean coming this way? This lot, and what's next, even if we chase them off!"

"We'll get rid of them too! Fought dragons three hundred years, didn't we? Not gonna let dragon _hunters_ scare me!"

"What, think we'll hafta adopt those guys too –"

"Not worth it –"

"No one's taking _my _dragon –"

"Just _animals_ –"

"Thunder's smarter than _you_, she's my friend –"

"And look what it got her – _ow!_ Brat!"

Standing alone, above it all and _useless_ there, Astrid watches in disbelief as her tribe turns on each other, pushing and arguing. There's a dull _thunk _as the first mug gets thrown, a _clatter_ and a _crash _as the first bench gets overturned, a pained scream as someone's foot or fingers get stepped on. Terrors scramble away and take off up to the smoke-darkened rafters, wailing protest to each other or anyone who'll listen. Astrid's catching scraps of shouting here and there, but the heartbeat of the whole mess is as clear as oar drums.

Her people are yelling at each other, but what they're telling her is _we're scared_.

And if she deserves to stand up here at all, if she's not just going to crumble to her knees and crawl back to Stoick begging him to fix this – even if he _would_ – that's the voice Astrid needs to answer.

Rather than trying to yell over the chaos, Astrid drops her sheepskin towel – maybe Snotlout had a point, it doesn't do much for her look – sticks two fingers in her mouth, and whistles fiercely.

"That's enough!" she snaps as the Great Hall falls silent and every eye in the room, even the dragons', turns to her. "Since when do we let invaders take what's ours? Since when is that who we are? Did a couple of years of peace make us frightened children? Not even that – your children went out to fight!"

She's stuck with what Gustav and his junior hooligans did, so she might as well use it. "Are they braver than you? What kind of Vikings do you call yourselves, standing there and saying we might as well just roll over and let these bastards steal – kidnap – our friends?"

All right, so she doesn't do comfort. She's got raiders to fight. Anyone who needs a hug, which is fine if they do, can go to Fishlegs.

"I will make this right," Astrid swears before all her people, raising her head high and lifting a hand in an oath. "I am the Chief of Berk, and _everyone _who lives here is protected, understood? You. Them." She points at Eret's crew – they've been here almost a year now but they're still brand-new to people who have lived with the same faces for generations. "And our dragons."

She lets silence rule the room for a moment before challenging them, "Now, does anyone have anything _useful_ to say?"

For a heartbeat, she thinks she's almost gotten away with it. That at least she's bought herself some time to figure out _how _she's going to make this right, because she knows in her bones that she's staked not just her honor, but her chieftainship, on this. If she fails in this, she's done. Unless she gets rid of those ships, and saves their dragons, and doesn't end up lighting pyres, Astrid Hofferson will no longer be Chief of Berk.

She's sworn it before her people and her gods, and to herself.

"Aye. I do."

Spitelout steps forward, a familiar scowl on his scrunched-in face, in between his stringy black hair and patchy beard, overshadowed by a helmet possibly a little too big for his head. She's always wondered who he stole it from, and if they were bleeding when it was done. Astrid's seen that expression descend on Snotlout any number of times, right before his father hauls him away by an arm berating him not for whatever trouble he's gotten into, but for not being _enough _of whatever Spitelout expects of him.

"What no one's saying," Spitelout says loud and clear, pointing an accusing finger at her as everyone watches, "is tha' this is _yer _fault. _Chief._"

* * *

She'd thought the Great Hall had been silent before.

She'd been wrong.

Astrid could swear that no one's even breathing – she may not be. No one has moved, and yet somehow there's a gradually clearing space all around Spitelout, leaving him to stand alone.

"Maybe no one's saying that," Astrid says, her voice very cold from where she's floating up above her own head, up above the clouds where the wind tries to drag her from Stormfly's back with the force of how _freezing_ it is. From there, she can look down on her gathered tribe and know she's too far away to leap from the table and go at Spitelout with a flying punch to make him _shut up, shut up, you're wrong_, "because it's not true."

He glares back at her, undeterred. "It is, though," he persists. "All this? All o' it's happening because of ye. Who said we should work with dragons in th' first place, aye? Who wanted to keep 'em around when they were gonna leave forever?"

Through gritted teeth, Astrid says, "I said that. I said dragons could be trained, and that they could be friendly. Look around. There's easily a dozen full-size dragons in this room, probably more since I just saw Ladydear slink in –" There's a brief flurry of movement off to Astrid's left as Ingeborg runs off to hug the little red-and-yellow Nightmare. Another one of their friends, still safe.

The sight helps, a little. It's a spark of the new normal she's come to love so much, that she's determined to defend no matter what.

"– and not one of them would harm us," she resumes. "You got a problem with that?"

"Aye, if it's bringing enemies _ye _say can destroy us to our shores! And who sailed off and challenged their old boss? Who was it picked a fight with 'im?"

"I didn't start that fight, and I didn't have a choice!" Astrid defends herself. "We were just there to look, so we knew what was coming for us! It wasn't my fault we got caught, and I did everything in my power to bring us all home – including your son, Spitelout."

It had been Eret's fault, if she wants to point fingers like Spitelout seems so eager to do. It had taken her a long time to forgive him for that, but she's not going to bring it up now. No warrior with any honor would use one of her own people as a shield. She'll take the blows herself, and hit back harder; that's the Viking way.

"Just to look? Right. Sure. So ye weren't out there pickin' fights with a lunatic warlord destroying everything in his path – all but inviting him to come here – over that _wild thing _o' yours?"

It takes a moment for Astrid to even understand what he's talking about, but when she does, the accusation actually knocks her back one pace. She feels the edge of the table beneath her heel, and only a lifetime of combat training across the ledges and bridges and uneven terrain of Berk keeps her steady, keeps her from wavering, and if she keeps telling herself that, maybe it'll be true.

"Hey," Astrid says, grasping for that calm again. "You keep your mouth off my friend. Leave him out of this."

Spitelout rolls his eyes extravagantly. Just what she needs. A public fight with a bigger version of Snotlout, with the same tendency to wear clothes until they stand up on their own, but without the sense of humor. "Why? Ennathin' ye want t' tell us, _Chief?_" She hates the way he says her title, like it's a bauble she's been handed without deserving it, that could fall from her hands at any moment if she doesn't cling tightly.

"I didn't go out there to rescue Hiccup," she says shortly. "He didn't need rescuing." It's not quite true. Gods know what would have become of him, left to wander the hell of Drago's flagship alone, without even the barest shelter she could offer, and so she can't help but add, "And if he had, what of it? You want me to apologize for fighting for him?"

This isn't the real issue here – she has a dragon-enslaving war fleet blockading her shores – but Astrid doesn't have enough friends to let a man she doesn't like suggest that her strangest one isn't worth her time. "He's Stoick's son!" she says heatedly. "He would have been one of us!"

Why _that_, of all things, seems to get to Spitelout, Astrid has no idea. But his face twists into something distasteful she can't quite name. It's not like she spends a lot of time studying Spitelout.

"But he ain't, is he?" Spitelout counters, jabbing that pointing finger at her again. Every head in the room turns to follow it, shifting from him to her like all the Vikings of Berk are watching blows traded in the pit. The walls here are ancient wood, not stone, and the fires were laid by Vikings, not lit by dragon breath, and there is no blade in Astrid's hands, but this is an arena nonetheless.

"Ye're always the one saying tha' wild boy's a dragon, tha' he doesn't want ennathin' to do with us – so why in all the hells did ye get involved?" He snorts dismissively. "What, ye're gonna pick a fight with the whole world, tryin' to save every dragon out there? Gonna raid beyond our borders and make us some more enemies?"

And oh, she _hates _how the picture he's painting is getting to her people. She hates, fiercely and bitterly, the whispers of doubt and suspicion she can hear but not identify, while Spitelout stands alone in that space the crowd has cleared for him. Now it looks like a stage of his own.

"– changing everything –"

"– never asked if we wanted –"

"– shouldn't be dragons here at all –"

"– can look after themselves –"

"– better off without the beasts painting a target on us –"

"– fine without 'em –"

"– and those ships will _leave_ –"

It sinks into Astrid that whatever is going on here, she's losing. But her honor stabs at her, unwilling to let the half-lies Spitelout is pitching at her stand.

"No," she answers as calmly as she can, as much as it hurts. Part of her wants to scour the oceans for every trappers' ship with dragons held captive in its belly, to fly into the keeps and forts of every chief she can speak to and tell them, _Look. There's a better way. Let me show you…_

But she has a duty to her people, to the men and women and children she was raised to protect, to guide and to learn from, to worry over and laugh with, to understand and to guard. To fight for. That she has opened their doors to dragons _cannot _mean that she is any less a chief of Vikings, or how will she be able to reconcile the truth she knows now with the truth she was raised to believe, and that she has never lost faith in?

How else will she stand before her gods one day, slam her axe – she still knows she'll die with it in her hands – into whatever table or throne or hitching pole they set between her and them, and say, "Damn you all – I did the best I could"?

"Just the ones we know," she continues, because that's the line she can walk. "Just the dragons who chose to live with us, who learned to trust us –"

And Hiccup _is_ one of the latter, for all he's never here.

Spitelout interrupts her. "But ye di'n't, did ye? Ye went out there and took all their dragons, and now they've come for us! They'll make _us _pay for what ye did, and who gave ye th' right to haul us into that? No telling if that Drago warlord would've even come 'ere, elsewise!"

Ignoring the muttering swirling through the hall – if that's not her own rage building, hissing around her like a maelstrom clearing its throat and spreading its mouth wide to swallow down ships – Astrid holds up a hand and snaps out, "Wait, wait, wait. Did you just ask who gave me the _right? _I sailed under _Stoick's _authority, and if you've got a problem with me now, you take it up with me – and I'll meet you with axes in the arena if that's how you want to play this out, Spitelout, any day. But Stoick gave me the right, back then."

His lips curling – oh, and _now _Astrid recognizes that expression – his voice barely reasonable enough to cover over the snarling jealousy right underneath, Spitelout says, "Aye, and so now ye've gotta answer for us, Astrid, because _we've _gotta be sure – did he do right, puttin' ye in charge? Grandpa Nokkvesson's right, y'ken – how many of us will ye get killed to fix yer mistakes?"

Fuming, Astrid argues, "If I can't protect the ones in front of me, what kind of chief am I?"

Spitelout doesn't respond, at first. He lets her question stand, and Astrid takes a deep breath, and then she sees the accusing look on his face as he spreads out his hands.

"Aye. And here we are in front of ye, wi' our enemies all around us, all but knockin' at our door. What kinda chief risks Viking lives to defend _dragons? _What kinda chief are ye, Astrid, if you care more about what's out there than about Berk?"

She can't bear how wrong he is – does he really not understand, or is he just taking this chance, while she's maybe in over her head, to push her under and hold her down? "It's not one or the other! Berk is my home, and you _are _my people, and don't you ever doubt that I care!"

He can insinuate all he wants that she'd made a mistake – Astrid has worked all her life to be the best Viking warrior and chief she possibly can be, but even she has to admit that everyone makes mistakes. She's so very aware of her own, after all. But how _dare _he say Berk doesn't matter to her?

No one who knows her, and everyone on Berk knows her, would believe that.

Right?

"Then I guess I'm the kind of chief with enough honor not to look away from someone in need, in _pain_, just because they haven't lived here for hundreds of years, or because they might have scales instead of skin! What would you have done?" she challenges him.

It's taking every breath of control Astrid's ever had to keep her hands from forming fists. She won't be the kind of chief who beats her people into submission. _She won't. _She saw enough of that with Dagur. Look how that turned out for him.

"Well? Do share, Spitelout, because I haven't heard one single word out of you that's any of the useful I asked for. So why don't you tell us what you'd do to fix this? Because if you've got nothing better to do than tell me everything you think I've done wrong, when you've never said so much as a word about it before, I've got some useful things you can do, and you're not going to like them."

He doesn't take her up on it. Astrid wonders if anyone's surprised. If he'd come at her like this when everything was peaceful, or at least as peaceful as Berk ever gets, she'd have sat with him across this same table and argued it out until their suppers grew cold and Hilda got tired of refilling their mugs with ale while she eavesdropped.

She badly wants some of that imaginary ale right now. She can still taste salt in her throat and her tongue is dry; from experience, she knows she doesn't have much longer before her voice becomes a rasp. She'll be croaking for days. Sweat is trickling down her back from the hearth-fires' heat and the press of eyes on her. Somehow her boots are even soggier than they were the moment Stormfly made landfall and Astrid stumbled from her back, trying to comfort her frightened Nadder and take Gull out of Gustav's hands and make sure everyone had gotten to shore safely and summon the entire village to the Great Hall all at the same time, instead of standing there and screaming at the sky like she'd wanted to.

For a brief, sharp instant, she wants nothing more than to be in Stormfly's saddle and soaring up and away into the sky, where no one can see her, where no one's asking anything of her but to _be_, and to keep her riding straps clipped tight.

Spitelout doing this now? In front of everyone? When she's got a war to wage? There's nothing to it but the spite he was named for.

"_I _wouldn'ta made trouble," is all Spitelout has to offer, but he does it smugly, confidently, like he's scored a blow against her.

"Funny," Astrid retorts. "Because you're making plenty for yourself right now."

She's been so fixated on Spitelout – and him on her – that neither of them has noticed the footsteps coming towards her, stomping angrily across the table. There are so many low conversations and arguments humming around the room – and she can't bear to listen, if they're agreeing with this bucket of fewmets Spitelout's spreading around – that any murmurs of curiosity or disbelief have been lost in the crowd.

And so it's all that Astrid can do not to jump when a hand claps down on her shoulder.

To her surprise, Snotlout is standing there, scowling like a storm cloud. He's glaring at the open stretch of floor between his father and Astrid like it's offended him, like he's going to set it on fire just by staring…which Astrid is pretty sure he can't do, because she definitely would have heard about that by now, and also most of Berk would be on fire, and her too.

Snotlout squares his shoulders like a yak bracing itself to be charged, lowering his head like he plans to use those horns. His other hand scratches at the back of his neck uncomfortably, fiddling with the still-wet strands of black hair jutting from beneath the lip of his helmet.

"Hey," Snotlout says shortly. "Dad. Astrid's not so bad."

He –

All Astrid can do is stare at him, as gobsmacked as she's ever been. The moment she'd realized Stoick was teaching her to be the next chief, that he'd known her heart before she had. That time Ruffnut and Tuffnut actually caught a giant squid, wondering how they'd gotten it onto a boat barely bigger than it was, and when they'd realize that it was still alive and angry with them. Watching Hiccup and Toothless soar over Berk at the end of an endless war, wild and laughing, triumphant and free, fully themselves and glorious. Her first sight of Drago's fleet, massive ships seeming to fill the world even as they threatened to end it. Holding Stoick's hand as he fought for breath, his lips blue.

And Snotlout standing up for her.

Against Spitelout.

In front of everyone.

It's not that Snotlout hates her, or she him…not exactly. They'd fought each other bitterly as children, scrapping over everything from her being a girl and the next Chief of Berk, to who broke the best wooden sword, to whether biting had really been fair payback for him smearing her pigtails with rotten sheep fat. They'd sparred viciously as teenagers, competing fiercely to be the best firefighter when the dragons raided and burned, and the best trainee in the arena as captive dragons lashed out at them in fear and pain and rage.

Snotlout has always tried to impress her, and Astrid has always demanded that he actually be impressive first, and so they've never gotten on. Before Snotlout saw her riding on the back of a Nadder and decided to outdo her with the biggest Monstrous Nightmare he could find, the best they could really ask for was sneering at each other from across the street, or Astrid chasing him and the twins down when they set out to do something stupider than usual.

But then there had been Fearsome. And then somehow "Stop doing that, that's _not how you do that_" had turned into "Look, why don't you try _this _instead before that Nightmare eats you", and Snotlout had gone from ignoring everything Astrid said to just muttering "Bah!" every so often and then trying it anyway.

…until she'd remarked, louder than she really had to, that he'd sounded just like a sheep, and then they'd gone back to "Shut up!" for a while again.

But he'd kept listening.

She doesn't need protecting, but she'd been glad to have him at her back in the depths of Drago's fleet. He'd promised to be a sword at her side, and he had been after all. He'd followed her lead when chaos ran laughing and turned everything upside-down. When there's a fight for Astrid to point him at, they manage to coexist better than they ever have.

Whenever her riders fly together, as Astrid tries to forge them into a reasonably coherent team that actually works together rather than just piling all over whatever they're trying to do until something breaks, Snotlout is always the one to point out how stupid her instructions are, argue with her, deny that he's even listening, or push to do something else. Mostly Fishlegs ignores him and stays reliably on Astrid's side – Snotlout had bullied him terribly when they were children; sometimes Astrid regrets not sticking up for him more. And no one ever knows what the twins will do, so Astrid can usually overrule him just by leaving him behind, then, if Snotlout doesn't want to play her game.

But that he's even _causing _there to be sides sometimes drives Astrid absolutely insane. Why can't he just do as he's told? she's often wondered, often through gritted teeth. Why can't he just listen to her, and if he's going to do what she says anyway, as he usually does, why does he have to argue with her?

Wouldn't they be a more polished team if he'd just stop fighting her?

Not that Astrid thinks that's ever going to happen. Snotlout fights everything.

Except for Spitelout. His father can reduce Snotlout to a muttering, cringing shadow with just a few words and a glare.

Snotlout defending her against Spitelout, in front of the entire village, is right up there with the moon strolling out of the sky and shaking Astrid by the hand for unlikely. But here he is, even if he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Yeah, I said it," the stocky young Viking warrior mutters. "Shut up. Don't everyone get all worked up at once."

No one's said anything.

Snotlout complains, "Ugh, you people," anyway. He looks very fixedly at the stone floor as he flops down to sit on the edge of the table, far enough away from Astrid to not be at her feet, and grumbles, "Fussin' all the time. Whatever. Can we not all die now?"

"Now see 'ere, you brat –" an equally shocked-looking Spitelout blurts out, but Astrid cuts across him before he can get started again. She doesn't have time for this.

"You've had your say, Spitelout. Now back off and let me fix this. Isn't that what you want me to do?"

He glowers at her. She stares back, narrowing her eyes like she's glaring down a hostile dragon, refusing to show fear. Of all the things she could be afraid of – oh, there's a list – Spitelout is not one of them.

Spitelout breaks first. He turns his head away with a snort and a grumble, shrugging his shoulders and pushing away into the crowd. It closes in on him, and Astrid fights not to sigh with relief.

She also hopes she doesn't see people turning to follow him.

"Look, everyone," she says, determined to get the last word, "however we got here, and I'm not saying Spitelout is right, because he's not, I've promised to fix this. And I'm going to. And if I can't – oh," she interrupts herself. "Thanks, Fishlegs."

Fishlegs offers her a shaky smile, and also her dried-out bear cloak. It settles on her shoulders like hundreds of years of Berk itself, way too warm in the already too-warm room, and she's never been so glad to have it there.

She doesn't miss the smile and the supportive thumbs-up he gives Snotlout, either, or the halfhearted punch Snotlout aims at him, which misses by leagues but was never meant to connect.

"Then that's on me," she resumes. "All right? I can't change what's already happened. No one can. Some things are _so _broken, even the gods can't fix them, and the past is just going to have to be one of those things, unless you know something I don't. Everything we do has consequences, and we can't know what they're going to be when they do them. I didn't know Drago's ships would come back here. I didn't think they even knew where we were."

She is going to stomp seven kinds of crap out of Dagur…

"I did the best I could," Astrid says, feeling the weight of those words on her tongue. They're the ones she lives by. If some enemy swings an axe into her someday, they'll find those words carved into her bones. "I still am. I always will. I can't promise anything more, because I'm not going to lie to you. If you're looking for miracles," she tells her frightened, angry, confused, besieged, worried people, "I don't have any. Not yet."

Astrid locks her hands into fists behind her back and takes a deep breath. "But if you give me a chance," she offers all the faces demanding that she protect them, human and dragon, "if you trust me, maybe I can come up with something clever to get everyone out of this. _Everyone_," she repeats. "Alive. And free. Whatever it takes."

Her words hover there in the room for a few heartbeats, filling the cavernous space like the biggest Gronkle in the world, too heavy to fly but managing it somehow. And gradually, she hears people muttering agreement, or at least settling for her promise for now.

It's not the rousing cheer Stoick would have gotten, but she's not Stoick, and it's a start.

"All right then," Astrid says, ready to move on and get down from this table, and maybe find some drier boots. Also, she can't imagine the mess her hair is probably in, and now she's really glad she didn't think of that earlier.

"Anyone with suggestions, I'll be right here. Unless something's on fire, in which case you'll find me there. Everyone else, stay alert, but don't let those ships out there break us. If we're living afraid, they've already won. But if you know a dragon who trusts you, keep them with you! If anyone needs fish or meat to bribe them with…Hilda, you're in charge of rolling out barrels, all right? We protect them too. We look after our own."

* * *

"Nice speech, chieftainess," Eret greets her, and she waves him off with a good-natured sneer as she assures Gustav for the eighth time that _yes_, she is going to rescue Thunder, and all the other dragons he got captured as well.

"Look, write them down, will you?" she suggests just to get him to change course. "Hey, Fishlegs, got any chalk – course you do. Thanks. Here, Gustav. Find a bit of table and give me names and descriptions. I don't know who you've got these days."

Much subdued – Astrid would prefer him this way, if she didn't sympathize – Gustav takes the lump of chalk and vanishes.

"Don't call me that, and tell me about it later, when it's a nice plan," she tosses at Eret as he joins the little cluster of people settling in to talk to her, and not just to tell her what to do like the disorderly line of Vikings she's finally gotten rid of.

Gobber's here, peg leg propped up on a stool. Ruffnut and Tuffnut have dragged Barf and Belch over and are using the Zippleback as a backrest, albeit one that tries to eat off their plates every so often, while they sit on the floor.

Snotlout's sticking close to her, maybe because Spitelout is going to make his life hell the moment he steps away, and Fishlegs has probably broken the land-speed record for a dash to Gronkle Cove to fetch his flock out of their ship den and bring them all back to safety with him. The horde has set up camp in the hallway to the kitchens. Even in those shadows, Astrid can tell one of them is heavier than usual.

Gronkle eggs. Future. Yes. Even if she has to hear about them twice a day.

Stormfly has given up trying to creep under the table in pursuit of an abandoned chicken bone; she's just too big to fit, and she never remembers that. Now she's managed to perch on the seat of Stoick's big chair, clucking importantly. A green-spotted Terror is already clambering over the back of the chair, freezing stock-still with a gape-jawed grin every time anyone looks at it.

With a sigh, Astrid admits, "That was a mess. What the hell was Spitelout thinking? I had this, until he got involved."

She turns to Snotlout, who's pulled his helmet down over his face, and says, "Thank you, by the way. Do you have any idea?"

He grumbles hollowly into his helmet.

"Can't hear you."

With a great sigh, Snotlout pushes his helmet back up and says in a great rush, "You're Chief of Berk and he's not and he thinks I should be and I don't want it anymore!"

"Well, that's a mouthful," Eret says into the silence that follows. "Someone want to explain for the new guy?"

Gobber elbows him. "His da's Stoick's cousin, a bit removed. Thought he was gonna be next in line for yon big chair, and 'is son later on, after… Eh. Well. You all know wha' 'appened wi' Hiccup. But then Stoick did sommat different. He chose an heir wasn't his own blood, that'd be Astrid here, and Spitelout, hah! Hoppin' mad like I'd never seen 'im, and he was more trouble than e'en this one."

"Gee, thanks," Snotlout says sarcastically.

"So, what, he thinks he can make everyone mad at Astrid and they'll make him chief instead?" Ruffnut asks, face screwed up doubtfully.

Snotlout kicks at Gobber's footstool and gets a scathing glare for it. "Or me. I dunno. And I don't want to be. Like he cares."

"That's silly."

"Yeah, and when _she _thinks something's silly, it's really silly," Tuffnut agrees. "I think it's silly too, if it's a vote."

"It's not a vote," Astrid says, taking advantage of the crosstalk to work a sea knot out of her hair. Sometimes she misses her braid. "It's one more thing I don't need right now."

With just the people she trusts around her, she can put her head in her hands and sigh. "Even if we can keep all the dragons from flying out there and getting caught, how are we supposed to patrol the entire island for trappers coming here?"

"There's no way," Eret says, shaking his head. "Know you don't want to hear it, but I know what I'm talking about. Practically the first thing trappers learn is how to sneak. Only way to catch a dragon, if you don't want to fight it directly. Hiding from people? Easy. You can't smell us coming, or track us where we've been."

"So we're going to lose some," Astrid sums up. She'd known it already, but it's hard to hear.

"What happened to Shorty, then?" Fishlegs asked, his face drawn down into a frown that looks like it's never going away. "Why'd they kill him?"

Gobber shrugs. "Mebbe they dinnae mean ta?"

"Nadders are quick," Astrid and Fishlegs chorus, one of the few things the _Book of Dragons_ had gotten right. He manages a small smile, and she goes on alone, "I bet they snared him, he got loose, and they shot him down to keep him from warning us. Nadders stick together, too. If he'd made it home, he'd have cried to Stormfly, and she'd have come to me."

Fishlegs nods. "Still a warning. Just not the one we thought."

"Oh, they'll absolutely sit on us until we starve, if that's what it takes," Astrid says grimly. "That's way off. Leave me to worry about that. Question right now is, how do we keep our dragons free?"

Everyone looks at everyone else, and nobody speaks.

After a minute of increasingly uncomfortable silence, Astrid breaks it. "Come on, people. No good options, I know. No miracles. Give me bad options."

"We negotiate?" Fishlegs attempts.

Astrid shakes her head. "We don't have anything to offer them that that they can't take. They're here for the dragons, and that's no option at all."

"They're Drago's men," Eret buries that idea. "They don't negotiate."

The twins whisper to each other for a few seconds, and then Ruffnut says, "We have a plan! But we need…sixty-seven jars of Zippleback gas, or whatever twice…no, five times that is, and some jam, and some way to get a mudslide out there, and all the Smokebreaths from Breakneck Bog, and also that dragon of Hiccup's."

Everyone blinks. Astrid can't blame them.

"You mean Toothless?" she ventures.

"No, no, no," Ruffnut shakes her head. "The _big _one."

"The _really _big one," Tuffnut specifies. He points at Eret. "The boss dragon one. He said it."

"Yeah, we don't have any of those things. But if Hiccup turns up," Astrid promises, knowing he's not going to, "we'll certainly ask him. Next?"

"I'm going to regret asking this," Eret says, his tattooed chin on his hand, "but what is the jam for?"

"Us!" Tuffnut answers indignantly, like it was obvious. "We like jam, and no one will give us any."

"Aye, fer good reason! You hellions jammed me forge!"

"Oh, that was _ages_ ago," Ruffnut waves a hand graciously, ignoring the fact that it was barely two months ago. "No jam, then?"

"Please focus," Astrid groans futilely, and repeats, "Next option."

There's another long moment of silence. Gobber's the one to break it this time, setting his peg leg down on the stone with a _clunk_.

"Eh…_how _bad are the options ye be wantin', then?"

Astrid rolls her eyes. "I asked the twins for ideas."

"Hey!" Ruffnut and Tuffnut say in ragged unison.

"C'mon, guys, you two are the masters of bad plans. Whatever you've got, Gobber. Let's hear it."

The battered old smith grimaces, working the fingers of his remaining hand in a nervous pattern, clicking his rock tooth in and out of his jaw. "Aye…they're here to take the dragons, right?"

"Right."

"So…what if there were nae dragons 'ere?"

It's all Astrid can do to stare at him, unable to believe her ears. "Wait, what? You can't be siding with all those…people," she says, because they're her people even if they're scared and saying things she doesn't agree with, "who think we'd be better off if the dragons all left. Our dragons belong with us! They're our friends, our neighbors –"

"They're targets," Eret says, raising a finger.

"They're _ours!_"

"Astrid, girl – ah, Chief – sit ye down, yeah? Dinnae mean it thataway. Said ye wanted bad options."

"Not that," she denies furiously, on her feet.

The things some of those people had said…

_We don't need dragons here, they're just putting us in danger_.

_Send them away, then! They'll be fine._

_Berk is our home, we just let them stay awhile._

_We don't need dragons._

_I nearly died fighting dragons. I'm not going to die fighting for them._

_Don't you remember?_

_We did just fine without them._

_They don't belong._

_Look, I'm glad we're not enemies anymore, but I don't have to die for them._

_It's the dragons that are the problem, then? Just the dragons?_

"Not _ever_ that, you can't possibly think it's a good idea to throw away all we've gained, all we've learned, everything we've set right and made better just because bloody _Drago's_ men and some smirking dragon hunter turn up on our doorstep and demand we hand over our friends or they'll take them!"

From her perch on Stoick's chair, Stormfly raises her head and whistles anxiously, hearing the denial and rage in her rider's voice. Even Barf and Belch are staring at her, their necks crossed over each other and heads tipped to opposite sides. It's making Astrid dizzy just to look at them.

"Astrid," Gobber says, raising his hand. "Chief. I'm not sayin' ye send 'em away foreverlike. Just move 'em outta reach for a while."

"Oh!" Ruffnut says, waving her own hand in the air. "We steal the dragons first! Like when Snotlout tried to take our shark but we moved it to the treehouse instead!"

"Hey, I don't want your stupid shark! I've never wanted your stupid shark! I just want you to stop dropping it on me –"

Stomping hard on her first instinctive reaction, Astrid tries to step back and hear what Gobber is really saying. Everything in her revolts against a Berk without dragons: she's worked so hard to make the two coexist. It's never perfect. It's never going to be. But it's better than the alternative, and hearing so many of her people ready to throw all that overboard has put her on the defensive, just looking for someone to hit back at.

But that's not what Gobber's saying, is it?

Gobber's talking about an evacuation.

"We'd still have to gather up a flock," Astrid says dully, folding an arm across her chest and pressing her other fist to her forehead. It feels like she's holding herself together. Like otherwise, she might fly apart.

But if she shatters under this crisis, no matter how personal, what kind of chief is she? Generations of Berk's chiefs faced impossible odds and terrible choices and kept fighting. They did what they had to, no matter how much it hurt or how bad it felt, because the only other choice was defeat.

And Astrid has never accepted defeat in her life. She doesn't mean to start now. Not when so many lives are depending on her. Not when failure means her friend Stormfly – and so many others, as bright and alive as she – will be captured and enslaved and broken, to die in chains far from home.

Anything but that.

_Never. Never. Never_, she'd told Grimmel, and she means it still. Nothing he came here to do comes to pass. _No matter what_, she'd promised her tribe.

"And they'd come back, right?" Fishlegs insists. "Once the fleet moves on, and they've given up on us when there's nothing to steal. The dragons come back?"

Astrid stops pacing, looks him in the eye, and says, "Yes. We're only moving them for now, if we can. But then everyone comes home."

"Wait, we're really doing this?" Snotlout demands.

She shrugs, because otherwise she'll scream. "Best bad plan I've heard so far. I don't like it, but I don't see a lot of choices – no, Ruffnut, even if we did have all those Zippleback jars, I think you're depending on a Bewilderbeast showing up, and that'd be a miracle. Can't count on those."

Snotlout scowls, thinking. He always makes such a performance of it, like it hurts, or like he's trying to get people to notice how hard he's working on it. She's in no mood to credit him for it. Maybe another time. "Still got a blockade around the island. Lotta arrows and nets to dodge."

Fishlegs snaps his fingers. "Cloud cover," he blurts out. "Me and Dark Deep went up high, on the way out to rescue Gustav and his gang, and until Astrid called us down, for a minute there I couldn't see the big ships at all. They probably couldn't see us, either. If we tried this on a really cloudy day –"

"Yeah, but your Gronkles are _brown_. I can't see 'em half the time anyway."

"That's because you don't look for them, Snotlout," Fishlegs says primly. "They see you. So, a cloudy night, then? And if we stay high, those catapults have to have a range, right? Eret, how accurate are those net launchers?"

Eret grimaces. "Depends on who's shooting. Put Norge on it, better luck throwing 'em with your hands. But past the clouds?" He shakes his head. "I wouldn't try it. Too wasteful. I'd never get my nets back. You'll be dodging missiles for sure, but I think you'll get most of 'em out. Real question is, can you get 'em all to follow you? Like you said, you don't have an Alpha to tell them what to do…"

Sighing, Astrid nods and says, "That's a problem, all right. And I don't know. The village dragons will probably follow me and Stormfly. They all know me – I've had a hand in training every one of them, just so that when I yell 'No!', and I yell 'No!' a lot, they know to listen. And if I tell everyone that this is how we save our dragons, people will bring them to me."

"Ye do all right wi' those whistles o' yours," Gobber points out.

"We definitely have to do this at night," Fishlegs mutters. "Those ships have to have lookouts with spyglasses, they're bound to notice otherwise…"

Turning to the twins, Astrid says, "I might need a distraction. Ideally, there will be lots of fire involved."

Their matching grins promise mayhem. "We are _good _at distractions," Tuffnut volunteers cheerfully. He and his sister start whispering to each other, gesturing broadly and smirking in ways that would worry Astrid if she wasn't about to point them at people she _really _doesn't like.

"What about Thunder?"

Everyone startles and looks around, with a few muttered curses from Eret and Gobber, to see Gustav standing there.

He doesn't pretend that he hasn't been eavesdropping. Astrid's almost sorry that they've finally found what it takes to get Gustav to take things seriously, because his expression is the most pitiful thing she's ever seen on his face.

"They've already _got _our dragons," Gustav says bluntly, disappointment hovering just on the edges of his voice. "If those trappers give up and sail away like you're saying they will, what happens to them? So you save everyone else's dragons – so what? What about _my _friends?"

That, at least, Astrid has an answer for.

"Then I come back," she says fiercely. "So it'll take a while for those people out there to realize that our dragons are gone, especially if, as much as I hate saying it, some of the wild ones don't come with us. Gustav, I haven't forgotten about the ones they have already. I know you're just as worried about Thunder as I would be about Stormfly, if it was Stormfly out there, and I'd do everything I could to get her back. We'll rescue them. I just don't think we can rescue the trapped dragons and protect the free ones at the same time."

"No point stealing their pebbles if they're still stealing ours," Eret says, ticking a finger back and forth with a somewhat hollow smirk. "Nobody's getting ahead in that game."

"Right," Astrid says with a nod. She looks from Gustav to Snotlout, to Eret and Gobber, to Ruffnut and Tuffnut and their Zippleback, to Stoick's big chair and Stormfly sighing patiently as that Terror curls up on her nose grooming under its wings, to Fishlegs with his jaw set but trembling anyway, and all the Gronkles in the hallway beyond.

"We save the dragons we can," she says. "We get them out, but just for now. And then we come back for the rest. And then, when these ships figure out that we're not giving them what they want, everyone comes home where they belong."

It sounds like a plan.

It feels like a defeat.

"One more question," Eret puts his hand up. "Where are you gonna take them all?"

Astrid manages a small smile, even though it feels like a stranger to her face. That's practically the only part of this plan she doesn't hate.

"Oh," she says, trying for blithe and ending up at determined. That's more her style anyway. "I know somewhere."

* * *

_To be continued._

**Author's Note: **At just over halfway through _Freefall_, this looks like a good time to remind all readers that the _Freefall_ soundtrack is also under construction, to be shared at the end of the story. Most of the songs I put on the _Nightfall _and _Stormfall_ soundtracks were provided by readers – have you got a song I can use? Anything that reminds you of a character, a scene, a theme, an event…I'd love to hear them!


	12. Chapter 12

_**Freefall, **_**Part Twelve/Interlude**

"It's getting loud out there," she says.

She's right, of course. She usually is. It's just that the distant sounds of the village of Berk, which, as usual, involve shouting, don't matter much. In here, it's quiet. In here, is the world.

Stoick can hear the fire crackling, chewing through the bark on the logs and hissing through the kindling as sparks scatter across the hearth. The house settles around them, its bones groaning softly. His knife rasps against the chunk of smooth birchwood in his hand; there will be splinters in his blankets. Doubtless he'll regret them when he finds them, but right now, as peace breathes out around the two of them, he can't find it in him to care.

He can hear his own breathing, still a little labored. He can't hear the waves crashing against the headland the house sits on, but he can feel them. He's fallen into a too-empty bed exhausted at the end of so many endless days, and the only dreams he's cared to remember are of the enduring pulse of his island.

And, of course, there's the voice of the slender young woman curled up on her side of the bed – it's always been her side of the bed – with one hand tucked beneath her cheek, her back to him. But out of the corner of his eye, he can see her blink and watch her breathe, see her familiar face move as she speaks, and the joy of her, back where she belongs, where she always should have always been, is like the warm tide of a steaming-hot drink spreading out through his chest, like sunlight on a cold day.

Leaning back against the headboard of his bed, Stoick carves away another sliver of birchwood and brushes it away. Once, he would have saved up a handful of the shavings and dusted them through her matching hair, no matter how she spluttered and threatened to light his fledgling beard aflame.

Once, he had. He'd carved this headboard as his gift to her, long ago, and kept it ever since no matter how it hurt to look at it. At first, because it only served to remind him of her. And then, as the hurt dulled but never faded, because he knew he could do better for her, if she'd only come back to see it.

But this was hers, and he'd held on to the fading hope that one day, he'd take her by the hand and bring her to it, and say, "This has always been yours."

And he did.

Now he wants only to see her at rest and know she's happy, home with him again. Everything the world has thrown at him – all the dragon raids and the winter storms and the everyday headaches of watching over a tribe that argues like it's a game and never backs down over even the smallest things, the people he's lost and the friends he's grieved for and the thick silence of a house too empty to live with, all the _time_ – he's endured it all for this.

Just for this.

To sit on his bed knowing he's done all that he can, his heart light with its burdens lifted.

And Valka at his side.

"Were you always this small?" he asks fondly, abandoning all pretense of not watching her. She looks so young, unchanged by all the hollow, bitter years that stretch out between them. Her face is clear of the lines that crease his; her hair is untouched by the grey streaks that have bled into his. She's still slender, a shade too gawky to be girlish, the strong bones of her face betraying the stubbornness in the set of her jaw. He could very well say to her, _I have a daughter your age_.

"I used to be smaller," Valka replies wryly, just the faintest trace of a smirk in the corner of her mouth, but he knows her face so well: he sees it. "So were you."

Stoick chuckles, and says good-naturedly, "You were a brat."

"You were worse," she counters without insult, as if these words have been tossed back and forth between them all their lives, a well-worn argument. Not threadbare, but as shaped to them as Stoick's favorite boots fit his feet, or like the haft of his warhammer once slipped into his hand. He's set it down now. It has no place here.

"Why'd you marry me, then?" Stoick asks, as easily as if they've had this conversation every night, all their lives. His hands ache to comb the triple braids out of her hair, to run his fingers through the cascading ashy-blonde length of it, but he can't reach out for her.

Valka thinks about it, one bare foot twitching idly. "Hmm… Oh, I remember." She chuckles, light and amused, so perfectly right it's like he's plunged his own whittling knife into his chest. Not deep enough to split his heart, but he can feel it reaching. "I went to bed angry. I don't even remember about what! Could have been I just didn't like your face that day."

"I always liked your face, Val," Stoick says quietly. She's not beautiful, as Vikings count beauty. But he'd trade a boatload of golden blonde goddesses, as rolling as a hillside, for her funny face any day.

"I fumed all night, pacing back and forth," she continues, but her cheeks have gone just slightly pink; he's always loved how reluctantly she blushes, as if she'd rather wind right up to fury and blaze. "I must have thought of a hundred things I was going to say to you when I got the chance, all lined up like onions. Not sure I slept at all."

"Well, that explains a lot," Stoick teases her, forcing the smile out past the knot in his throat that rests there sometimes, when he least welcomes it. It's all he can do to keep hold of his little work knife, brushing it across the wood's surface again, when old habits demand he tug on the end of her braid.

"First thing in the morning – do you remember? – there I was, pounding on your door to tell you all the ways you were wrong. And you opened the door, and you launched right back into it with me. And I was so happy." She turns her face into the pillow to hide her smile, sprawling out on her stomach with one arm over the edge of the bed, and sighs.

Stoick listens to the beautiful quiet for a while, remembering that girl, and how he'd found himself seeking her out just to see that scowl she seemed to keep only for him, because his day didn't feel complete without it. Something scuttles across the floor of the upstairs loft, rapid and feather-light. Outside, the rushes of the roof whisper their own stories in the sea wind, and the bed creaks as he shifts his weight. Or maybe that's his back. Gods know he's got enough battle-scars that he wouldn't notice one more ache.

"Why are there so many knots in this rug?"

He doesn't have to look to know she's got her lovely fingers tangled in the long fur of the battered old yak-pelt rug next to the bed, tugging on the tied-together strands curiously. Of course, she wouldn't know.

"Astrid," Stoick says, like that's the whole story. She'd gone through a phase where she'd spent night after night sitting cross-legged on the rug, relentlessly tying its long fur into knots and picking it loose again, lower lip thrust out stubbornly as her fingers flew. Back when Berk's new chief was just a little girl with chubby pigtails, but such an angry child. All bottled up inside her, like she meant to burst with it someday. The _drive _in that girl; he knew all along she'd move the world if it didn't get out of her way.

Valka props herself up on one elbow, staring up at him like they're both young again, not innocently – though she sleeps by his side as chastely as a child now – but insistently.

"You'd like her so much, Val." If his regrets were stones, he'd pile them up into a whole new island, but that Astrid never got the chance to meet his bold, fiery, brilliant Valka is a sharp-edged pebble indeed. "She reminds me of you. Little girl against the world, and the world had better keep an eye out astern."

Whatever's going on out there, he knows that Berk is in the best hands he could have asked for. He has faith in Astrid as he has in few people. She'll tie whatever she's dealing with in a knot and pull until it begs for mercy, twist it around until it's something different and new.

"I always knew you could handle anything, Val. She can too."

He means it as a compliment, but her sigh chips at his heart. The rough edges of his would-be toy coracle – as usual, he's spent more time looking at her than at the shape he chose on a whim – bite into his palm as his hand clenches, regret heavy on his tongue.

"You make it sound so easy," Valka says, her voice smaller than she seems. "When it's a fight every moment just to keep going, and you know you can never let them see you crumble. Even if they love you. Even if you love them right back." She sits up, running her hands over her so-young face, but her eyes are as tired as Stoick feels when she turns to him.

"Don't leave her alone, if she truly needs you?" she asks of him. Regret has fallen over her like a veil of the thinnest cloth that had ever reached Berk's shores. The piece hadn't survived long, as every woman old enough to walk tried to handle it and wonder over it at once.

Stoick has seen too many fragile things break.

This woman, the wife he lost long ago, sets her back against the headboard he carved for her, and says wistfully, "Out there…I was so lonely, Stoick. You can't imagine. Or maybe you can. I know what it feels like to need you, and to know you're so far beyond my reach."

Valka plays with the edges of her ragged rust-red mantle, not meeting his eyes; everything in Stoick screams at him to place a hand under her sharp chin and turn her face up to his. Just to hold her, to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go again.

"Like shouting, as loud as I could, until my voice broke and my throat tore, and all I got back was echoes, mocking me. Not my voice anymore, but not real, either." She bunches the cloth into her hand, a finger's-worth at a time, until Stoick thinks it might rip. And what a shame that'd be, he thinks irrelevantly. She'd loved that threadbare thing, no matter how faded it became from all the weekly washes it went through, after being dragged along into whatever muddy or bramble-patched or dusty or sap-smeared adventures she'd worn it for.

"I was so scared," Valka says to it, and the subdued hurt in his wife's voice makes Stoick want to hammer his way through the walls of the world. She should never, _never _have had to say those words, and to mean them so completely. He would have given anything, to protect her.

"Every single day, at first. Fear, right down to my bones. I thought I was going to die."

There is a long silence.

It's broken only by the crackle of the fire and the movements of the scuttling little creature upstairs; something's gotten in for sure. Well, there are scraps of his latest meal still out on the table, if the scavenger isn't too discouraged by the other plate.

"Will you tell me about it?" Stoick ventures. Anything to chase away the shadow cast across her fierce young face; she hasn't aged a day. He can't imagine her worn down by year after year of raids and battles, not when she'd hated them so passionately, can't imagine time preying on her. If he could do nothing else for her – and he should have done so much _more_ – at least he can put himself between her and that greedy thing. It's torn chunks out of him. He's proud to bleed for her.

Valka shakes her head. "The world within the ice, where he took me? Where we lived? Where - You don't want to hear it."

She takes a deep breath, and it stutters in her throat. A shudder runs down her spine, and Valka wraps her arms around herself, turning away from him and moving on light feet across the room.

When she crouches before the hearth, her hands outstretched to the fire burning there, her clothes are different; the mantle is gone, replaced by her grey-blue tunic, the belt with the seashell beading, those deerhide leggings she'd torn beyond repair scrambling through wreckage but fixed anyway. The motley cloak she'd loved so much, made of scraps from half the village, spills out beneath the long fall of her hair, gathered into the low tail she'd sometimes worn it in at feasts.

That cloak is in the chest at the foot of his bed, folded carefully with shaking hands and wept over, buried beneath the accumulated treasures of twenty years.

Stoick doesn't care.

Without hesitation, he joins her at the hearth, tossing the half-carved chunk of birchwood into the flames. The fire devours it greedily, new warmth filling the room, and a precious bit of tension drains out of Valka's slim shoulders.

She's always cold. But she never complains. Even now, as she sits down before the fire with gratitude in her eyes as Stoick builds it up, she's breathing into her hands to warm them like all those spikes of blue-green ice loom over her still. It wraps a whip-sharp noose around Stoick's heart to think of her, lost out there, with no one to hear her when she hurt.

Sometimes her face is grey, like the fire he tries to keep burning can't reach her; sometimes her lips are too pale. She hugs herself for warmth and chafes her hands together.

The fire snaps like it has fingers, and something rattles up in the loft, knocked aside by scampering feet. Stoick scowls up at it, but it's going to take more than some pesky little dragonet to pull him away from Valka's side. He has so much time to make up for; the world owes him every second.

Valka follows his gaze. Does she flinch away from the memories still etched into the space beneath the roof? No. Surely not. Gods, he hopes not. "Stoick?"

"Ah, somethin's up there, is all. Probably a Terror or two, getting into Astrid's old stuff. Little menaces can't get enough of her."

Folding her hands over her drawn-up knees – warmer now, but Stoick adds another log to the fire for her – she smiles fondly at him. What he would have given, to see that smile again. "I'm proud of you, you know. For raising her. I remember how much you wanted…"

A silence opens in the room as big as a hole burnt through the roof and outspread wings, as wide as the space between his reaching hand and hers, in the shape of a boy grown wild as a dragon.

Stoick pushes himself to his feet and grabs a half-carved chunk of wood off the table without looking. The fire might need stoking again, with a weight like that upon it. But no. It's blazing brightly. So he sinks to the hearthstones beside her, one creaking limb at a time – gods, he is _old_, when not a day has touched his Val – and lets their warmth soak into him. He hopes they're warming her.

"…children," she finishes as Stoick scrapes his knife across the dark wood, only a single line of tension in the set of her jaw. "You took her in when you didn't have to, and I can't imagine what that felt like. I hope you never felt like you were replacing us."

And oh, but for a guilty and terrible moment, years ago, he had. He'd woken up in the middle of the night, hearing the floorboards creak as that little girl crept across them on some small and tentative errand of her own, and years of empty nights had been swept away so thoroughly that he'd reached out for Valka sleeping at his side, wondering why her side of the bed was so cold and where she'd gone –

He'd remembered all at once, and all he'd lost had crashed down on him like his house had decided to fold in on itself, every rafter and joist and roof tile drawn to the terrible hungry void at his side.

He knows Astrid had cried herself to sleep more than a few nights, missing her Uncle Finn and furious at everyone for being alive when he wasn't.

He hopes she never knows that some of those nights, he'd wept too.

"It got easier, with time," he admits instead, looking at his carving without seeing it, because he can't quite bear to look at her. She's there. He knows she's there. "Now I almost miss her. Got used to her, y'see. And it made going up there a little easier. Before, all I could see was… Well, you, and…"

Stoick has to take a deep breath before he goes on, somehow sure that if he stops, he'll never start again. He has held these words in his scarred and calloused heart for so long, and who else can he say them to, but Valka? They were always meant for her. She'd always understood him better than everyone else. Maybe because she challenged him over everything, and he found himself defending himself in ways he'd never had to, with anyone else. Maybe because she holds his heart already. She knows him in ways even he doesn't.

"She patched a wound, best I can say. It still hurt, underneath –" _Hurt _is a little enough word for it; _hurt _is his whittling knife skipping off a flaw in the wood and burying itself in his thumb a few weeks ago. _Hurt _is something he can be careful not to do again.

Losing his wife? His son? Seeing them taken from him, knowing he'd failed in the one thing that _mattered_, in the moment they needed him most? Feeling loss rip through him like a dragon's claw?

There's no word for that. That was something he survived.

"– but I could look at the bandage instead. New memories, and I could think about those instead."

"Good," Valka says, so firmly it takes his breath away. How had he ever won any fights with this rock-stubborn girl-woman? She orders, "Don't you ever blame yourself for that," with a pointing finger, and it's so familiar Stoick would fall in love with her all over again, had he ever fallen out.

Oh, he has so many stories to tell her. "Wasn't easy, raising a little girl. Been counting on you to do that." He snorts. "What in all hells did I know about what little girls need anyway? Sort of just treated her as a son, let her figure out the rest herself. I didn't understand _you _most of the time at that age."

"You should have just taken everything you were like to me, and done the opposite."

Val's voice is so perfectly dry that all Stoick can do is laugh, as broken as it feels. "But you turned out so well, Val!"

She laughs with him – gods, that _laugh _of hers. Let that door stay barred forever, and the scraps on his table turn to dust, and he'll still be drinking down that sound like mead. A man's laugh, too big for her slim body, bold and brash and outspoken, just like her.

"Peskiest girl on Berk you were, for sure."

"I never gave you a moment's peace," Valka chips in, grinning at him like that puckish, pushy girl so long ago. A rangy girl-child, poking her nose into everything until someone threatened to chop it off, who could drive a stone to tear out its hair.

"Did I ever tell you about the day I knew I loved you?" he asks. He's gone over that moment a thousand times since, carving it into his memory like the shape his hands are pulling from this chunk of wood, pressing his thumb against it like a wound he couldn't bear to let heal.

Her voice is very soft as she glances down at her hands, folded together and held carefully still. They'd vanish into his. "No."

_I should have_, he doesn't say. _I should have said so many things. I should have packed them all up in a bundle for you to take with you, to warm yourself by, to weave into a rope to drag yourself home with_.

"Middle of summer," he says instead. "You woulda been maybe seventeen or so, I think."

"And you far too fine of a grown man and a mighty chief to speak to me," Valka prompts him with a shaky smile.

"C'mon, Val, last time I pulled that on you I think you were six. And wearin' most of a sheepfold, if I remember right, and most of it ended up on me for trying." Stoick sighs, flicking away a twist of fresh-smelling wood, and keeps talking. Valka's beside him; everything else seems very far away. "The lot of us, all the young men of the tribe, lazing around telling each other lies about some raid or another or the dragons we'd fought or the great deeds we were going to do. And Alvin had to open his big mouth and say something foul about you."

Even now, Valka doesn't need to hear it, not from him, not even so many years later. She hadn't been there to see the dark-haired, broad-shouldered warrior with his nose already broken and plenty of scars – not all of them the battle wounds he claimed – sneer and dismiss _that gawky girl – yeah, _if_ she's a girl, right? Coulda fooled me. Doesn't wanna fight dragons, huh! Guess she's fierce enough to have a go at us 'cause we'd never hit her, but not when she might actually get hurt._

Alvin had spat in the grass and smirked, the expression painful on his face. _And she'll just have to keep picking up those grass stains by tripping over her own feet, 'cause no one's _ever _gonna –_

Stoick had punched him before he'd even known he was doing it. The world had stuttered, and then Stoick had been on his feet with blood on his fist and impact ringing through his bones, with Alvin in a heap on the far side of the log he'd been sitting on.

"Just instinct. Right in the jaw, 'cause that's what was flapping. He hadn't seen you at all – none of them had. You can't imagine the way the lot of them stared at me for defending you. Gobber laughed until he hurt himself."

He sighs and works his knife around a tricky bit in the wood. "To me, you weren't that weird, pushy girl. Though you were," he adds, and she beams. That's his maverick Val. "You were the smartest, bravest person I'd ever met. Never hesitated to tell me when I was wrong, but I had an island full of people telling me I was wrong. Still do, or I did. But you told me _why _I was wrong, and you listened when I told you why I was right, even if you turned it all right back on me again. I could talk to you for hours and never get bored.

"And you weren't clumsy," Stoick remembers, watching happier days as if he could see them through the walls of their haven. "Little squirrel, you were, and quick on your feet. Left all us big folk panting in your dust. You just got mad when you weren't asked to dance. More fool whoever got in reach of your feet then."

Valka's pulled her motley cloak tight around her, nearly vanishing into the folds, but he sees her hands, balled up behind her knees, unclench. Almost meditatively, she says, "I did miss dancing. And music…I'd sing to him, sometimes, but you know I could never carry a tune without you to balance me."

Wordlessly, Stoick sets his carving down, hauls himself to his feet, and stretches out a hand to her.

She looks at it, wide-eyed, searching his face with concern. "But –"

"I don't care," he says, and he's never meant anything more.

Hesitating, like he'll pull his hand away, she untangles herself from her cloak and coils up to her feet in a single movement Stoick couldn't have pulled off thirty years ago, much less twenty. He'd always liked that silver-green dress on her, the one with the wide belt and the forest-brown wool wrap. It still fits her beautifully as she brushes hearth-dust from it.

Smudges on her fingers or no, it's all Stoick can do to keep from grasping her hand, hovering over his. And though his throat is far too tight to sing aloud – it happens at the strangest times, washing over him like a storm to pull at his eyes and leave his head as heavy as a waterlogged bushel drawn dripping from the sea – he can tap his foot against the floor in good time, hearing the nails in his boots ring out, and step to the side knowing she'll follow his lead.

Val's face lights up, remembering, and she spins with him, humming the song his heart is singing, the one they danced to the day she was his – a lie, a lie, he has always been hers – and that his feet remember though he's never danced to it since.

He's left so many weddings, once the music began.

Stoick leads her dancing, and he turns, and Valka sways and skips and leaps with all the grace and joy of the girl she still is, laughing as she stumbles, grinning as he misses a step like a man who's torn too many important things in his legs over the years, sweeping a bow to him as he goes down as if he'd knelt to her a-purpose. She taps her feet between his, quick and easy, her light slippers flashing between his heavy boots; when his hip checks up against the table, sending both plates rattling, he barely notices, his eyes all for the flush in Valka's cheeks as she counts out her steps and the beat of their song.

Years ago, he'd caught her up, her slim waist in his broad hands, and felt her hands fall onto his shoulders as he spun her until they both might have fallen, seeing the lights and faces and painted buildings and whatnot of Berk blur to streaks of meaningless color while she stayed always before his eyes.

As full as his heart is, it flutters, and Stoick slows, pressing one hand against his chest unconsciously, before the song he can almost hear is through.

"Oh," Valka says, stumbling to a halt beside him. "Stoick, I – are you – I'm sorry, my love, I didn't think –"

Well might she be worried, given what she must have seen of him. He'd woken on his back, in the snow, feeling like a dragon had sat on his chest. Astrid had been clinging to one of his hands, he remembers vaguely, but on his other hand –

She'd been there, her eyes wide with fear, fire and the night sky and great wings behind her – and then she'd been on her knees beside him, in the snow, that same expression on her face. He'd made the effort, and taken first one breath and then another, just to see the fear in her eyes fade away.

"I'm all right," he says now, leaning against the table. "Really, Val." Her cheeks are flushed red with laughter and the dance, little locks of hair tumbling out of her triple braid, and she's breathing hard.

He's reaching out to smooth her hair from her face before he remembers, and pulls his hand back without feeling her breath on his skin.

Gods, _that's _what hurts, not the way his heart stumbles sometimes. The weight of all those years without her, a stone block resting on his shoulders. Having to set her aside just to live, because he'd had to. Too many lives depending on his to break like he'd wanted to. Telling himself every day, _one day, maybe today_, and falling asleep to the chant of _one day, maybe tomorrow._

Everything reminded him of her. Places he'd seen her – and she'd been everywhere, the village just isn't that big, even if it burned down every so often. The time he'd sat down to a feast in the Great Hall and found those meatballs she'd tried to make on his plate, only cooked right. A child's cry. Their home, _their home_…

The pain of it had faded, as time went by, flaring up whenever he realized it used to hurt more. But then something unexpected would happen. The day Astrid looked him in the eye and swore that dragons could be trained – that determined blaze in her eyes had hit him like a Nadder's tail, heavy and sharp enough to slice him to shreds. There Valka was, all over again.

And once again, he'd missed her like falling apart inside. Like he'd become a hollow man, with no room in him for anything but pain. Like he'd swallowed thorns, and they'd grown inside him.

"It's good to see you again, Val," says Stoick, now. _Welcome home, Val. I still love you, Val. I missed you, Val._

"I never would have chosen to leave you," Valka answers, turning away with her hands in fists by her side.

And maybe it's the familiarity of that – his Val so upset she's bursting with it, but unable to do anything but churn – that opens Stoick's mouth.

"But you weren't happy here."

She doesn't answer, at first. He doesn't push her. He picks up a half-full mug of warmed-over ale that survived its jostling, and drinks what's left. He listens to the fire and holds a hand over his heart until it steadies. That little creature upstairs knocks over something small and races away from the resulting _crunch_. There are voices outside, but they're far away. There are the echoes of a song unsung, drifting away into the rafters and creeping under the bed to find a home in his dreams.

"No," says Valka. He didn't see her move, but she must have, because she's facing him again, her chin raised stubbornly and her eyes fierce. She looks just like her son.

"I always loved you, Stoick, but this place – I knew there had to be a better way, and no one would listen to me! Even you – I know you had to do what was best for all of Berk. I know it must have seemed safer to do what Vikings always have, because it had worked so far, but just because you were used to it, that didn't make it not terrible! All I wanted was to find something that would work better, that didn't involve a war to the death. And maybe no one was ready to hear that, back then, but that didn't make anything easier for me. You did protect me, you know that? Without you, I would have been driven away from Berk entirely."

_No, no, never, I would never have let that happen_ is on Stoick's tongue already, hot and poisonous and halfway to a roar at the thought of a world where he didn't _care_. But before he can find his voice, she bows her head, raises a hand to him, forces a smile, and says, "But can you finally admit I was right? I told you it could be done!"

It hasn't escaped him that the Berk he handed over to his foster-daughter was the world Valka had dreamed of, that their son had decreed for them, that Astrid had worked for, and that he'd accepted for them all. A world where dragons no longer fight Vikings, where they live in peace together and only argue when it's fun. Where children run fearlessly under the feet of firebreathers that could crush them but won't. Where they've got a chance to see tomorrow without waving an axe at it.

He only wishes he could have given it to Valka herself.

"Oh, of course," he says instead, hoping his smile is less forced than hers. "Here you are at last, and it's just to tell me I'm wrong."

She laughs like a rope snapping, sharp and quick and with something set loose that needed to run free.

Though he dreads the answer, Stoick can't help but ask. "Were you happy there, with them?" _Did you laugh for the dragons you lived among? That beast that took you, did he love your laugh the way I do? Would your son recognize your laugh, if he heard it?_

Any question about the life she lived, the one that doesn't show on her face, drives her back to the fire, and Stoick is almost sorry for the tremble that runs through her slim form. Valka crouches down by the flames and reaches her hands out to them, blue-grey sleeves tinted with the fire's glow. She wraps her motley cloak around her shoulders again and huddles into it as he joins her there.

"It's not that simple," she says before he can doom his carving-block to the flames for her. "Were you happy here, without me?"

_No, Val, I wanted to tear the world apart until I found you –_

"But you had a life you had to keep living," she says as if he'd spoken. "So did I. It wasn't easy. That place…"

She trails off for a moment, her eyes very distant, and he knows she's seeing something he can't even imagine. He can't set that right. He can strop his knife across this curve of wood in quick, gentle strokes, shaving the shape within clean. He can watch the curling threads of dark wood cascade over his tired knees and rasp the calluses on his palm from a lifetime of weapons in his hands across what remains.

Almost dreamily, Valka goes on, "It's not meant for humans. But it's wonderful, in its way. So much life, hidden among the ice – you'd never know it was there, but when you're inside it, it's the world. And they're just people, the dragons there. No different. They love, and they hurt, and they care for their own, and they argue, and they hunger, and they play. I can't say it's peaceful. Maybe sometimes, but only when everyone's asleep. But it works. Their chief watches over them."

Stoick tries to imagine a world under the gaze of that blue-eyed, heavy-tusked behemoth, like a mountain that moved. He's seen it watching the dragons that swarm around it, though they must be less than flies to it; he's seen them bow before it as if overjoyed to do so. He's seen it fight for them.

"I struggled, at first," Valka says. She rests her head on her knees, face turned towards him, but her eyes still far away. "I didn't understand anything. I couldn't understand them, and I didn't know why I was still alive. They didn't act like any dragons I'd ever known. I never knew what the next day would bring, or who I could trust. I never knew if the dragons knew how breakable I was, or that I wasn't as strong or fierce as them –"

"You are," Stoick can't stop himself from saying as his knife bites into the wood. He's not entirely sure she can hear him. "You've always been a match for any of them, Val –"

"– and the cold," she goes on as if he hasn't spoken. She leans back into the fire; for a brief, wild moment, he fears for the end of her long braid. In the firelight, it looks almost as red as his; in another light, his greys could be her ash-blonde; in another life, they'd sprawled out together in the bed in the corner and she'd braided his hair into hers in a single plait. "They fed me sometimes, and I don't think they understood why I laughed."

Stoick does. In years gone by, he'd have laughed just as hard at the thought of a dragon feeding a human, when all Berk had ever known of dragons was that they'd stolen anything fit to eat.

"I wasn't afraid for Hiccup, though. Not from them."

She's been by his side for months now. Walking in the sun alone and smiling at the dragons sunning themselves in the streets while Stoick prepared to hand Berk over to Astrid. Sitting quietly on the ladder to the loft when his neighbors stop by to make sure he hasn't thrown himself into the sea overnight. Curled up at his side, trading endless rounds of _do you remember?_ back and forth with him as he drifts off to sleep.

She has never once spoken their son's name aloud.

Mind, neither has he.

Upstairs, the rustling sounds of something moving stop short.

"The dragons doted on him," Valka says as the sounds resume. Her expression doesn't change, like their world inside these walls hasn't just fragmented into _before _and _after._ "They always did. Toothless came to us like they'd found each other. Like they'd been looking for each other all along."

Stoick's work knife barely misses his smallest finger, and he flips the shrinking piece of wood around in his hand, breathing in its scent. Walnut. There's no walnut on Berk. How had this gotten here? Some trade or another, perhaps, or one of the expeditions they'd managed in between dragon raids. Anything to keep his mouth shut and from breaking this spell.

"For me…I was afraid for myself, at first, but I guessed that if they didn't kill me straightaway, they didn't mean to. So I had to live like we were going to be alive tomorrow too. I can't say all of them were happy to have me there, though. Enough of them had been hurt by humans to know what I was. My thief protected me, though. He looked after us."

Stray chunks of walnut be _damned_ – "What's his name?" Stoick blurts out, bile surging in his gut. He has cursed that creature by every name under the sun, except the one that Valka had given him, far away and lost to speech –

Her answer is very calm. "I can't tell you that. Or I can," she adds ruefully, "but you can't hear it."

"Why not?"

Valka meets his eyes. His beautiful girl with the funny face, her eyes like stone. But stone, when it burns, burns fiercer.

"Because Hiccup can't pronounce it anymore. So you don't know."

The room wavers around him, and Stoick shuts his eyes tight, bracing himself against the things he knows to be true. He is home, Berk is safe, and Valka is by his side.

As if walking in the moonless dark down an unknown road, Stoick backs up, step by step until he's on safer ground again, leaving the wrong path behind. She'd said that _he looked after us_, he can start again from there.

"It should have been me," he says.

"I know," Valka answers. Once again, she hasn't moved. Once again, she's leaning towards the fire like she wants to invite it out and hold it like a child. But she wouldn't want to burn, so it would need a skin. Perhaps the char and ashes building up in the constantly lit hearth would come with it, make it a coat all black and glossy bright –

"Thank you," she adds.

"For what?" Stoick asks, blinking away the vision of a baby dragon in his wife's arms, its broad-finned tail coiled around her wrist.

"Not hurting him, when you could have. He still loves me, and when dragons love…they don't stop loving just because the one they love is gone." She sighs, wistful in a way he's rarely heard her. Valka was never wistful when she could blaze instead. Her words are hard, but her voice is gentle. "You of all people should understand."

The little figure emerging from the wood in his hands, the table in the middle of the room, the ladder to the loft and the shadow darting down it, the firelight dancing over the hearthstones, the much-worn and completely un-battle-ready clothes he's wearing, the chest at the foot of his bed, the barred door, the shuttered windows, the long-discarded shield with its bole half-smashed in, Astrid's old hairbrush he found the other day and hasn't had a chance to return to her, his wife whom he loves more than the world at his side – all of it blurs before Stoick's eyes.

"I can't forgive him, Val," Stoick says, a few shuddering breaths and some wet sniffing – Valka doesn't comment on it – later. "I tried. Most days I think I've stopped hating him, but… If he hadn't taken you," he gives voice to all his dreams, "you'd have been beside me this whole time. You'd have aged –"

Time has not touched her. The only suffering that marks her body is the scars she'd had the day he'd lost her, from the starburst on her arm from a broken branch she'd fallen into, to the sweep of her hips from the baby she'd borne. He can't imagine her as old as he feels. She'd always had so much _life _in her, his Valka.

"– and you'd still have been beautiful, and as fierce as ever. We'd have raised our son together –"

"You don't know that," Valka says firmly. "Stoick. You don't. We could tell a thousand stories, and every one of them different. Anything could have happened."

She doesn't tell the stories. She doesn't have to. Stoick can tell them all. He knows – maybe better than anyone – how reckless she could be, how bold. She would have wandered into a dragon den on her own two feet, sooner or later, determined to prove herself right. She was always running into the middle of battles to stop killing blows. She'd plant herself with her arms folded on the battlefield and argue with angry Vikings, around and around, again and again, never getting anywhere.

And in the ash-choked wake of yet another fight, too often the deepest hurt Stoick would feel was seeing his beloved standing there amid the mud kicked up by too many feet and too many hurrying buckets of water, dismissed by the people who should have seen how brave she was, hurting because she couldn't change anything.

Would it have been better, if he'd _known_? If he'd been there to see her bright soul fade? If he'd had to hold her as she suffered, if he'd found her wracked with the fever and chills that race through Berk sometimes as the weather changes, seen her fighting for breath and losing?

Had it been harder, not to know? He'd always been able to hold a bit of hope somewhere in him, sharp as an arrow. But men die when healers can't find the splinters broken off inside them. They rot from within.

He doesn't know. He can't know.

Maybe there's no _better_. Maybe pain just is.

"I never gave up hope, you know," he offers quietly.

"I know." Valka smiles for him, her eyes bright. Her motley cloak has gone missing at some point; instead she's wearing a soft leather tunic, cut long, with fox-red fur across her shoulders and stylized dragons etched into it, so subtly he can barely tell one from the other. Rank upon rank of waves march along the trailing edge of it, and a bandolier of little tied-closed pouches cuts across her chest. She looks like she might leap into battle at any moment, or onto the top of the table to lead them all in slightly off-key song, beating time with that quarterstaff she favored because people underestimated it – and her – and survived to regret it.

"And I wasn't always afraid!" she declares. "Can you really see me cowering in a corner the entire time, crying to be rescued?"

Stoick denies, "Never," because he can't. Not his Valka. She would never be one of the widows who collapse and give up, drifting away to darkness after her husband doesn't wake up one morning, or her son or daughter falls in battle. And he wouldn't want her to be. She was stronger than that. If he had been the one to fall, Valka would have tied her belt tighter and kept her head high and absolutely _devastated _anyone who stood in her way.

She exclaims, "Stoick, I did things no one else ever had! I tamed dragons, and I raised two _wonderful _sons, and I explored a realm no human eyes had ever seen. I flew!"

Her voice soars, wondrous and delighted, overflowing with excitement. "Gods, Stoick, there's nothing else in the world like it – so fast, and so high! I've never felt so free. Like I'd been carrying around stones, and never realizing it, and I didn't even know I could let them go. To see the world from up there, and to trust your life to dragon wings – it changes everything. _Everything._ Promise me you'll try it, love, one day? Please?"

He can count on one hand the things she's asked of him, since that day in the snow. She'd whispered _live, Stoick. I'm here. _That was one.

"One day," he promises her. _Maybe tomorrow._

She doesn't press him.

"So yes," she says, with a sigh. "I was happy. Not always. But yes."

It's hard to hear, but what else would he have wanted for her? He loved her then. He loves her still. He would have wanted her to be happy, no matter what. No matter where.

It hurts like claws down his back, though, that it wasn't with him.

For the hundredth time, Valka's hand twitches like she wants to reach out for his. What he wouldn't give, for that tiny grace. "I missed you, but I had our son and his brother to look after, and a life to make where I was."

Over in the corner, something clatters. Stoick doesn't take his eyes from his wife's face.

"And Hiccup was so happy!" she insists. "He didn't know. He had friends – he's always had Toothless."

This is possibly the least surprising thing she's said since they sat down at the hearth. Gods, the way those two stick to each other… They mesh like folded fingers, the few and much-treasured times Stoick's had the chance to watch his son and his dragon-shadow be happy together.

"The caves were his home. Their world was his life. He didn't know anything else, Stoick."

"But he could have had friends here!" Stoick protests, as futile as he knows it to be. "A family…_our_ family! I had so many things I wanted to show him – I never got to see him walk, Val." Such a small thing, and yet it would have been everything. "I wanted to listen to him find the words to talk to me. I wanted to see if his eyes would stay blue."

"They're green."

Stoick says, very carefully, "Yes. I noticed."

"Settled not long after we were taken," she tells him, and Stoick has to concentrate very carefully on the wavering flow of this bit of wood. Otherwise, he'll remember watching his son's eyes drift across his father's face, dreamy and unfocused, and so blue they'd almost been clear, like some god had tried to catch the ocean in a thimble. He'll remember the first time he'd looked down at the baby in his hands and seen someone looking back at him, knowing he was there, and smiling. He'll remember tiny hands grabbing for his beard.

"I can't _swear _it happened after he met Toothless, but…" Valka says thoughtfully.

They've talked of lighter things for weeks, but the single tear in the bag holding all the questions he's always needed to ask has ripped wide open, and now they all come spilling out.

"Why didn't you bring him home?" Stoick asks, knowing it's the unforgiveable question, wondering a heartbeat too late if he's driven her away altogether, that she'll flee their home that was and the fire he's built to keep her here, just to avoid it. "Why didn't you come home, Val?"

In an instant, she's on her feet, but not to run. She turns on him like a hawk, like a dragon stooping to the kill, passion flushing her cheeks red.

"I couldn't!" she cries, throwing her arms wide. "Do you think I could snap my fingers and have him obey me, when he'd gone to such lengths to take me and to keep me? Don't you blame me for being a captive," she seethes, "because I was."

She's always been so glorious when she's angry, everything she feels plain to see on her face. "I had a baby to think of! What if I'd overstepped, or I'd pushed too hard, or broken some dragons' rule I didn't know anything about, and they took it out on us? You know how they fear humans – we were safe when I was _tame_, Stoick!"

He could watch her rage all day – long ago, he had, propping his chin on his hand and all but putting his boots up on the other arm of his big chair in the Great Hall, watching her fend off a Gripe Day aimed at her all on her own – but not for this. Not when it cuts so close to their hearts.

"I just want to know you didn't give up," he offers weakly; as defenses go, he's seen more stable newborn lambs.

With a snort and her hands on her hips, Valka demands, "Oh, when have I ever given up?" She sighs. "I don't know, Stoick. I was making some progress. I was learning so much – everything your Astrid has learned, I would have told you, if I could have! I wanted to! I got out of their nest eventually."

She must have, after all.

"…I just didn't make it home."

He doesn't say anything. He can't. Not to that. Not to her face. He can exchange his work knife for the twisted, ash-blackened poker lying by the hearth and shove the unburnt end of a log deeper into the flames, listening to them crackle hungrily. Beyond Valka's threadbare red mantle, hiked up near her waist, something small moves through the shadows, in quick scrambles and sudden pauses, startling as a strong gust of wind slams into the door, which jumps in its setting the same way it always has.

"I would have tried to come back," Valka says softly.

"Would you have brought him back, too?"

They both know who he means.

Her so-familiar face crumples. "Oh, love," she rues, "I never meant to let him get so wild! I mean, I don't know if I could have _stopped_ him, once they were flying – those two do what they want… But I didn't know what he'd become." The words have all the weight of an oath. "I didn't. I…I might have wondered. Maybe I should have."

"It's not your fault, Val –"

She snaps, "Of course it's not!" with anger riding high on her cheeks, the curl of her lip not quite her son's snarl. "Nobody's at _fault_, he's just…he's what he is. I thought, of course he could talk to dragons – they talked to him. But I didn't know! How could I have known?"

In almost a wail, she cries, "He was a _baby!_ He was _my _baby – he was _ours!_ How could there be anything wrong with him, when we'd tried so hard for him? How could he be less than perfect?"

In her, Stoick can see all the nights she might have spent worrying, wondering what was to become of the two of them. Her far from home, and her child – something else. And yet –

And yet –

He can't stand to see her in pain, afraid and doubting and besieged, and yet all he wants to tell her is that he's had this argument with himself dozens of times over. Had it, and won.

"Val," Stoick says, "there's nothing wrong with him."

And in an instant, all her fear and bafflement vanish, all the guilt in her eyes burns away like mist under the sun. The lines threatening to carve themselves into her face were never there at all, and the flyaway strands of hair she'd worry from her braid with fretting fingers have smoothed themselves back into her plait untouched.

"I know," Valka answers him, and smiles, and Stoick is young again. "I wasn't sure if you did."

He holds out a hand to her, and though she can't take it, she can be drawn back to the hearth, beside him where she belongs. He can watch her faith in him unfold in her eyes, warm and easy, like home. He can smooth the last rough edges and nick the last small details into the wooden figure in his hand, with barely a glance for it, when she's all he needs.

In agreement again, and at peace.

This time, when he hears scampering feet darting across the floor, he can't help but look. How could he not?

Nothing there; but was there? Had he seen something, out of the corner of his eye, in the instant between his gaze shifting and his head turning?

He's been so patient. He's waited so long. In the hopes that if she's here, then maybe –

"Don't," Valka says, lifting a hand as if to rest it on his cheek, run her fingers through his beard and turn his face away. He can't feel the warmth of her skin, not quite brushing against his. He could twist his head around, and she couldn't stop him, but he doesn't. He lowers his head, as she's asking him to, because the price he pays for having her here, he knows, is letting her be here.

"I know he's there –"

Her eyes are so sad, all of a sudden. "He thinks you'll grab him."

"I won't," Stoick promises. How could he?

"But you want to. You know he can see that."

"Of course I – he's our _son_. But I won't." His voice falls to a whisper, defeated. "I promise."

Setting down his knife, heedless of how he looks or how his joints and back howl as he shuffles to his knees, Stoick peers under the table, glancing between the forest of legs of more stools than he's ever needed; why does he have so many? He nearly has to lie down on his stomach to see under the bed, brushing away the dragged-askew quilt with an upraised fist. Nothing but the scraps and forgotten things that lurk under all beds. Nothing behind the chest at the foot of his bed, or in the shadow of his big chair. Nothing behind the woodpile, stacked high. Does he dare climb the ladder to the loft?

Gods, where else can he look – for a moment, it's almost like he's playing hide-and-seek like he _would have _done, if he'd had the chance to raise his only boy –

Pleadingly, turning in aimless circles in the middle of the floor as Valka watches with sorrow in her eyes, Stoick calls out, "Come out, little one."

No – he's too big again, isn't he? His spine creaks as he kneels on the ground, near the hearth again, almost at Valka's feet. He keeps his voice soft, when he wants only to scream. "Please."

"Stoick, love," Valka says gently, "he's not here."

Stoick takes a deep breath, and then another. He listens to his heart beat, and the fire snap. And he looks his wife in the eye and says – although it breaks his heart to do it –

"Neither are you."

* * *

Valka only smiles at him, all the patience and love he ever remembered seeing in her, on the quiet days when there was nothing between them but happiness and stolen moments; Valka crying for joy in his arms because she'd felt the faintest kick of a baby's foot within her, holding his hand against her skin, both of them praying with every breath that _this _time, _this _time…

She doesn't vanish, or cry out in hurt or betrayal.

She reaches out for him, not like he's been holding her here and has just let her fall, but as if he's the one in pain. He can see her; he can hear her voice. But they can never touch.

He knows her hands are only air and dreams.

"No," she says.

Stoick does not believe in ghosts. He never has. But if he woke from the edge of death with a dream of his lost wife lingering beside him, could any man blame him for wanting her to stay? To speak to him? To tell him all the things that might have been, or that he might have guessed for her?

Maybe he was going mad, he decided as Valka's shade walked beside him and exclaimed over all the ways her onetime home had changed for the better, but he can't find it in himself to care.

Who does it harm, if he is? Berk, his great duty, is in the best hands he could find. He couldn't ask for better. His son is…his son has gone down his own path. His son is an enigma and a wonder all his own, and under the protection of a dragon that monsters fear.

He has done all a man could ask to do, and with honor. So he can be done.

"I'm not. But he's not _real_," his wife's shade insists, though her eyes are kind. "He was never real."

She looks past him, and Stoick turns to see –

The boy in the shadows has his back to his parents, sitting back on his heels like any child playing in the dirt; he's too far from the fire for it to turn his shaggy, mud-brown hair to its true auburn. There's the last traces of baby softness in his body, and in the barest wisp of his face that Stoick can see. The grubby, ragged, hand-me-down tunic he's wearing could belong to any of the children playing in Berk's streets, tumbling across bridges, racing each other through the sheep pens, smearing cheese across their faces, screaming loud enough to scare the Terrible Terrors that chase them for the fun of seeing what they'll do next, falling down stairs, jumping off carts, tagging around begging for rides from women carrying laundry baskets – but Stoick would know this boy from all the way across the village.

Would have.

Never did.

Sometimes he thinks he's accepted that; sometimes he knows some wounds never heal. Sometimes he knows the wound is part of who he is.

"Hiccup," Stoick calls out to him, quietly. But he may as well have not spoken, for all his would-have-been son heeds.

"He answers to it," Valka, the voice in the back of his mind, says. "But it's not his name."

And since she's always been the wiser of the two of them, Stoick hesitates, remembering another night, another battle, another moment the world cracked in two. Remembers a frightened, feral creature, snarling to keep all of Berk away as the dragon it was protecting picked itself up again, stalling for time as Stoick tried to speak to it –

"_Ikk-puhh_," he tries, doing the best he can.

It's enough. It's close enough. That, Valka's child responds to, glancing back over his shoulder with his head tilted curiously.

The shadow's face is Hiccup's, younger and with all its sharp edges filed smooth, a softness in his cheeks and jaw that didn't survive to adulthood. But his eyes are Toothless' eyes, bright green all the way to the edges, too wide in that child's face.

Even here, Hiccup will only be what he wants to be.

_Those two do what they want_, Valka had said.

Stoick closes his eyes in a deep sigh, pressing his clenched fist against his heart, and says, "Of course you are."

When he opens them again, the dragon-child is gone.

"You knew, though," says Valka. When he turns back to her – still on his knees, he'll regret this come tomorrow –

(He already doesn't.)

– she nods at the hand he's still holding against his heart, and the little figure in it, warm from the fire and his body.

Stoick opens his hand to her knowing what she'll see there, knowing what it had become.

It had started as a baby, small enough to fit in his hand, asleep. But at some point, while they talked, the baby's blanket had become dragon wings, and it has a miniature Night Fury's tail wrapped around it, the very tip of one fin in its little mouth. The grain of the wood almost looks like dragon scales, patched across its skin.

"Yes," Valka says. "Even then, I think. You'll keep it?" The ashes of so many unformed _maybes _streak the fireplace at her back.

Stoick lets the silence stand for a few heartbeats, just being here, at peace, and finds that he is.

"You'll stay?"

Valka rests her hands on the carved dragon-child held in his. She can't touch him; he can't take her hands and bring her home. But this is a link between them, this child they share, and he always will be.

"I'll stay," she promises.

When Stoick looks up, their son is curled up beside her on the hearth, breathing steadily, his dragon's eyes shut in peaceful sleep.

Not hiding anymore.

* * *

_To be continued._


	13. Chapter 13

_**Freefall, **_**Part Thirteen**

She sleeps entirely.

They have flown far, following Shiver through pounces and tumbles and soaring glides, racing her through the sky but never veering far from her. Her eyes gleamed very proud to lead the way whenever Toothless spread his wings into the wind and fell back, chasing the flip of her tail as the wind caught her unawares and sent her spinning. And then of course they must dive down to follow her, falling very neatly with Toothless' eyes half-closed _boredom _and Hiccup yawning _not-worried, _as she scrambled to right herself again. And then of course they must dart away when she growls at them for teasing her, even as her ear-flaps flick low, as if she thought they might growl back for real.

She flies well, this she-dragon Shiver, but she pours all of herself into keeping pace with _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _who know how to fly far. When she wavered in her flight, they noticed. When her wings missed a beat with a coal burning through her chest, her sides twisting tight, they saw.

So though she cried _c'mon_, wailing _urgency_ – she has often cried out _recognition! _and _excitement!_ as she retraced the path she had followed alone through the sky, warbling _anticipation _to return accompanied – Toothless had turned away at the distant shadow of land on the horizon, trusting her to follow.

Hiccup looks back at her now from his perch atop one of the rocks hiding them all from the wind and the sea. The moonlight gleams back from her scales, as bright as the waves, where she lies in a careless, exhausted sprawl. Her sides heave with deep, exhausted breaths, easy and steady, wings folded around her. With her tail curved out far from her in the lee of the stones, she could be the moon when it has been eaten away to a sliver of shell.

She has not curled up with her side against Toothless' as a flock-mate would, and Hiccup is glad of it. He is not sure what he would have done, had she tried. She is Like Them, yes, and a friend now, and precious to them for those things, but –

Hiccup would not have liked it, exactly, though she would not have taken _his _place from him.

Beside her, in a dark puddle of charred-warm earth, Toothless sleeps in his tight curl of black scales, his nose against the edge of his outstretched wing, his tail wrapped around all of him – except for the half of himself that has wandered, restless and uneasy, away to watch the sea.

The night is not warm, but the dragon-feral does not notice the cold. When he shudders, it is for the danger that he senses still in the distance, a faraway shape that never quite came close enough to see. The feeling of it looming over him has driven him from sleep and from Toothless' side, chased him up this stone to crouch low among the dried-up rain puddles and watch.

Shiver sleeps without even a twitch of an ear-flap to mark the low cries of night birds and the changing turn of the wind. Hiccup knows his Toothless-_self_ will wake if danger pounces upon them. But Hiccup does not want it to ever get that close again. He would rather they be far away and gone before it can leap.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ often sleep in turns, when they are far from home in a strange place, so Hiccup has spent many nights and uncountable days on watch for danger while Toothless sleeps. But he does not often know exactly what he is watching for.

And now, he cannot stop remembering.

In the eyes of the Starving Man, he had seen hatred, but behind that loathing had been a hole so deep there was no end to it. Such an emptiness, he knows instinctively, does not stop until it eats, and even then, it stops only to seek its next meal.

Some hatred is so strong that the body it wears cannot turn and run, fleeing from any trace of whatever disgusted it so. Hate like that goes _towards _what it hates and rolls around in it like a very dead fish.

The little dragon bares his fangs at the dark horizon, wary of the shadow he had seen there, or thought he had, as Toothless and Shiver played together in the sky. Hunching his shoulders defensively, Hiccup curls his sharp-claws towards his palms ready to strike and tear. But for all their familiar rightness, and the many battles he has fought with them and won, they do not soothe him. Anxiety chases itself through his skull like a hatchling after its own tail, blind to all distractions, intent on pursuing something it will regret catching.

Whining _unsettled _high in his throat, Hiccup crouches lower to the stone and wishes for a tail to wrap tight around himself.

_Hiccup-beloved-mine? _Toothless clicks below, barely a mumble on the edge of dreams. When Hiccup sits up to look, his dragon-heart has his head tucked under his wing, nosing along his empty side. Toothless' head emerges with _fear _chasing unfocused dreams from his eyes, looking around wildly –

_Here-I-am_, Hiccup signals in answer, and Toothless sighs _relief._

_You why you there worried where you you gone why not-like worried,_ says Toothless, whimpering with his ear-flaps low. _C'mere you gone bad sleep? Sleep yes you love-you you here!_

Hiccup closes his eyes at him _love-you, _but looks back towards the sea with a whining growl. _Nervous there danger-there maybe not-sure cautious me watch guard you-dearest safe yes._

He keeps his voice low, but still Toothless flicks his eyes sideways at Shiver sleeping so deeply. _C'mere_, he repeats, pawing at the ground. _Careful quiet secret this just-for-us c'mere you._

There is nothing on the sea but waves, fracturing the light of the vanishing moon, so Hiccup scrambles down from his perch. Even in the dark, he does not disturb even so much as a pebble; darkness is as much his home as the sky.

Toothless pulls Hiccup back towards him with a paw, drawing him close against the bigger dragon's chest to be breathed over and nuzzled. _Worried you dearest-self me not-like very-much-so share you yes why worried?_

For a moment, Hiccup wants nothing more than to curl into Toothless' heart-fires and be small, to forget the shadow far behind them – but not far enough – and the white dragon Toothless watched so constantly and the silent shape of the Lost One half-buried in still-warm ashes at Toothless' shoulder. But there is no flock here to protect them from the path they have taken, no Cloudjumper to pick up some problem in one foot-claw and shake it until its neck snaps, no Alpha to command _**Be still **_and be done.

They have only each other, so they must be enough.

On the belief that they _can _be, do _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ wander the world.

_Hunter_, Hiccup cries, low and quiet, and _danger-warning _and _watch-out_, glancing over his shoulder and snarling _stay-away!_ With the tip of his ever-useful blade, snatched from the sheath on his foreleg, he scribbles widely in the ashes, trying to convey something he had felt rather than seen. Lines and arcs and scratches spiral out across the ground as the little dragon yowls warnings for them all.

_Follow_, he yips, and bristles at the command, drawing their wavering flight beneath the sun, and then a shorter, deeper line beside it.

_Shadow-there_, he snarls, sifting through the ashes.

_Hunter danger-warning very-much-so disgust fear bad bad bad hungry pfikingr hungry us eat us hunt want-to ugh stay-away!_ as he draws formless fear.

_That,_ he signals, gesturing at the scars on Shiver's forelegs, the marks from chains still marring her scales. He wraps his claws around his own wrist in illustration.

He draws a long-tusked enemy dragon, its silhouette jagged, its jaw snarling, reared to leap with its tail held high. He draws the Starving Man beside it, tall and sickly lean like a prey-beast dying of hunger in a bad winter, when it has withered to nothing more than bones that walk inside its skin.

Toothless snaps out his fangs and tears his claws through the last drawing.

_Her?_ he asks, with a glance at Shiver. Unlike some of their cousins, she does not snore. _That-bad-thing her maybe want? _He quorks the scornful noise for a flock-mate who will not stop pestering even when there is no fight left to win, who will not stop crying for a share even when the fish are all eaten; dragons can be poor losers._ No-never! Protect! Us bite!_

Hiccup rumbles _uncertainty. Maybe not._ He has no doubt that the Starving Man would pursue Shiver. The Starving Man had her once. Hiccup could see clearly, as the last rope snapped and she flew free, that he had wanted to keep her very badly, and had been furious to lose her.

_That – _he signals _disgust_, recoils _wariness_, and leans back against Toothless' chest, stretching a paw up and back to wrap around his dragon-self's neck – _us._

_Hunger-want us._

Even in the heart-safe darkness of his place at Toothless' side, Hiccup had seen only the way the Starving Man had looked at Toothless. He has seen such a hunger in the eyes of dragon-cousins waiting out the winter, when meat and the sun both recede into dreams.

He thinks less of the way the Starving Man had looked at him. He is quite satisfied to be hated, even hated so fiercely, by a hunter like _that_, who breathes only to kill. He would be concerned for himself only if such a hunter had been _pleased_ to see _(click)-phuh_-half.

Toothless rumbles deep in his chest, considering. _Careful yes us careful-quiet cautious_, he concludes. _Danger know-now determined careful._ Glancing over at Shiver again, he tenses as if to leap from rest at once and fly quickly. _Hurry-urgent ready go us go go quick c'mon go now fast._

But he does not leap, and Hiccup knows he does not mean to. After they have rested, then they will fly quickly; it is wisdom to do one before the other when they can. When they have rested, they will be ready to make one great direct sprint to where Shiver is leading them.

They will not play so much, tomorrow. They must race as if a monster pursued them, and with a monster on their tail, the dragon-pair can fly very fast indeed.

_You say now why?_ Toothless demands, snorting aggrievedly. _Play silly me her up-down-all-over_ – Toothless flicks his nose all over, as if trying to follow a most annoying fly that will not stay still to be blasted with far too much fire – _yes we danger-though you see? you see? Me!_

Still in the circle of his dragon-self's forepaws, Hiccup sits up and sets his nose, wrinkled _annoyed_ at the rebuke, against Toothless'.

_Did so! Listen you!_ he snaps.

He had noticed while they flew, and he had worried, and Toothless should have known! They have never had to _tell _each other these things.

_She you chase? Suppose-so indignant urgent-important yes sure-sarcasm flying good far silly play – listen me should yes need-you!_

And there is _hurt_ in his voice, shallow now but with so much deeper to sink.

It is an _amazing _thing to have another Like Them, who knows them now and flies almost as neatly as they do and is taking them to a nest with even _more._ But it is a delicious thing turned bitter, to have another whose shape is so much like Toothless' that Hiccup cannot help but be jealous, seeing in her all he has imagined for himself. That is what _he _should look like, to fly beside Toothless-_best-beloved _like his reflection, a little different but so much the same.

He is well aware of Toothless' fascination with her, and understands that it is more. She smells good; she flies well; she is an alike that did not share their hatching. Many, _many _of their she-cousins have bounded across the peaks and through the caves of their nest with males their shape, or near enough, chasing after. Their she-cousins have darted away into the air challenging those who dare try to catch her, and chosen her mate from those who can fly her down. And Toothless has chased none of them. It was a game for others.

Besides, Hiccup knows with pride that his Toothless-_self_ could outfly them _all_, and games they know they can win are less fun.

Shiver could race Toothless very high.

And Hiccup has felt Toothless strain towards her, watching her always, surging after her, as if he might like to try. Maybe. She has offered him no invitation yet.

Hiccup does not know what he feels about this. He does not even know how these feelings feel. They are strange and new and entirely incomprehensible to him.

To fly a mate, to make eggs to be hatchlings, must be a joyful thing, or why would their cousins chase so eagerly? And if it is, then Hiccup must want that for his Toothless-_half_, because what pleases one of them pleases both; it has always been so.

But is there space for _two _halves and a mate in a nest?

Hiccup does not know how to feel about this, and he does not know how to talk about it, either. They will have to figure it out between themselves. But maybe Toothless has been thinking it too, because Toothless purrs very fiercely, closing his paws more tightly around his Hiccup-half.

_Love-you!_ Toothless declares. It would be a roar, but then Shiver would wake, and this is only for _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_.

_Always-always-always certain-sure you mine treasured-best you me we us together-fiercely mine love-you you you you._

He glances over at the still-sleeping white dragon, her scales shimmering only with the moonlight. _Us we go,_ he offers. _She out-there home-nest safe good safe – this safe maybe-so_, he adds of the Lost One, turning away to nudge it briefly. And then?_ Go us go you me not-her you say? you want? you say._

Toothless will forget her utterly, if Hiccup asks it of him. He has known this one Like Them only briefly; the little dragon _(click)-phuh_ is half himself.

Hiccup _whuff_s _denial_ at him, _love _thrumming powerfully through the undertones. _Wait-to-pounce_, he signals, willing to see what tomorrow brings before they decide upon it. He whistles still-bright _surprise_ for Shiver's very existence, hesitates with his claws clicking harmlessly against Toothless' foreleg, and checks, _her you like?_

_Yes,_ Toothless affirms, which Hiccup already knew; his other half could not hide such an obvious thing from him. _Interest, _he croons, _curiosity_. _Smells good_, he signals, and crinkles his eyes _amusement_. _She fierce._

Chirping _laughter _back at him, the little dragon curls into Toothless' forepaws, nestling against his heart-fires as Toothless mutters approvingly over Shiver's flying. _Can't-catch-me she fly?_ he wonders, but snorts _dismissal _at once. _Danger-warning there threat hunting wary_, he adds. They have the Starving Man, or his shadow, to outrun and a new place to explore.

_You here,_ Toothless purrs, certain of where his heart lies – under his jaw, trying to yawn and purr an echo all at once. _You mine we always._

Hiccup's yawns win their battle, and his dragon-heart rumbles over him. _C'mon_, Toothless signals, raising his outstretched wing slightly and nudging his little partner to his side. _You sleep_, he orders, snorting _must!_

_Need-you here best-of-all need-you always_, Toothless hums to him as Hiccup curls up by his side. Sharing his anxieties with his other half has knocked them out of their spin; a fear he cannot share with Toothless is like a thorn in his paw. With it laid out on the ground for them both to see, he can lick the wound clean and play with brambles more cautiously.

Tomorrow they will fly hard and fast for safety, and leave the Starving Man pawing at the ground for their scents with nothing left for him to eat.

Until then, the dragon-pair can sleep, drawing strength from each other as they always have.

* * *

The ocean roars, its throat opening to swallow them, and Toothless' every instinct howls at him to turn and flee.

Shiver is whistling _excitement!_ and fluttering around him to urge them _c'mon!_ but Toothless must hesitate and stare.

All day, they have flown very quickly with little of yesterday's wild playfulness, all of them bristling and hackling, shuddering at the thought of their enemy at their tail, who hunts them even across the deep ocean. Hiccup and Toothless have outwitted many hunters, destroying the traps they leave and setting their captives free, but they have never encountered a hunter who chases them so persistently. How can he have followed them? Toothless has wondered, with no desire to go and find out. Dragons are faster than any _pfikingr_ ship, and he and Shiver even more so.

And still, he would not have seen this _strangeness _as a refuge.

The roaring had begun while they were far away, when the narrow, sharp-edged rocks jutting up like teeth out of the ocean were only a smudge on the horizon. It grew louder as they came closer, Shiver racing ahead and Toothless soaring warily behind with Hiccup alert on his shoulders.

Fighting the strange winds that tugged on his wings, snatching the air from beneath them to make him fall, Toothless had hovered high above and watched an odd thing become astonishing.

Toothless understands tides, in that he knows the ocean breathes in rises and falls. He has seen pathways between island and outlying rock rise from the water and drown again beneath it. He has seen tide pools flood and then be left isolated. He knows not to fall asleep on a low-lying beach, or to let Hiccup do so. He knows not to stay too long in a cave that opens on the ocean, because it might fill and trap them there, unable to swim against the water surging ever higher, sealing them in.

He has never seen an entire island drown.

Neither has he seen the ocean swallowed by a great crevasse.

Quick enough to watch it happen, and for Hiccup to wonder over in startled and amazed whistle-chirps, they have seen the wide, jagged pit, too deep to see the bottom of, become a waterfall bigger than they could have imagined. The endless icemelt waterfalls of their home are _nothing_, next to this.

A pit that can gulp at the ocean _surely _must be hungry enough to eat dragons, too, but Shiver is soaring towards it, calling _invitation _back to them. Her wings are as white as the cloud of sea-spray, so that she nearly vanishes into it. The long afternoon sun shatters through the mist, scattering flashes of color across the sky.

_Here!_ Shiver cries until the roar of falling sea drowns out her voice. _Good here down-here this-way you come! You see! here nest safe good best safe mine you good…_ and she is gone into the mist like smoke-heavy breath with a flick of her tail and a plummeting dive, like her wings have been torn from her shoulders and her slender body turned to stone.

On Toothless' shoulders, Hiccup shakes himself and growls _uncertain_, but Toothless can feel him yearning towards the waterfall pit, murmuring _wonder_ in small, breathless sounds, as he does towards all new things.

As they both do.

_She water-cousin no she us-maybe she us like no-threat_, Toothless signals to Hiccup, who grunts _agreement_.

That it is a _very _long way down, too far to see the bottom, does not worry them; depths are just heights with more rocks involved. But should the ocean open _eyes _as well as a throat with teeth in it –

Their instincts are to cower, before such an open throat, and yet – _Us we brave yes us go,_ the black dragon decides, and soars towards the maelstrom, following vanished Shiver.

Seawater pours down its sides, cascading in a great flood over the widely-spaced stones jutting out into the mist-choked air. The great pit seems to breathe in, water dragging air down with it, tugging on the winds. But perhaps it will eat all their scents, too, and leave no trail for their pursuer to chase – Toothless certainly cannot smell anything but ocean, deep and rich and many-layered, the breath of a world the dragon-pair can never explore.

With Hiccup quiet, staying low and trusting him so utterly, Toothless sings _looking_-sounds at the great pit, wary of teeth. Useless, and he snorts _fine-then! _at all the pit – the falling water reflects all his sounds back to him scattered. He could sing into the sea, and do better. All of their aerobatics are useless here; this is no free and open sky.

He would like to be bold and daring and fearless for Shiver to see, but he would like to be alive and unbroken and flying for Hiccup more.

The waterfall fills the world, becomes the world, roars into his skull and floods his every sense, until Toothless truly does not know if the fish he just saw fall past him, caught up in a silty, muddy cataract and swept along, was real or a dream.

The swirling currents of the thirsty pit wrench at his wings, buffeting him sideways, sending him spinning through far-reaching splashes of sea struck to mist. To fly level here would be a challenge always, a fight with every wingbeat, twisting dragon wings askew, sending even the best of fliers spinning.

As with so many _interesting _things, perhaps there is no safe path, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _dare always.

And so Toothless races across the maelstrom's maw until he hits the spot where Shiver dived, whistling _ready-ready-ready!_ to Hiccup who shrieks _exhilaration!_ back to him over the thunder-roar of the endless waterfall, and he snaps his wings shut tight.

They _fall_.

They fall near-blind, nothing but water filling the world and the sun flying away in a startled leap far above, air screaming into ears and eyes alike as if to warn the dragon-pair _you no no-here back-away stranger here you go-away warning offense outrage help-me! flock-to-me! strangers here!_

They fall with nothing but trust to guide them, that the little dragon who brought them here would not dash herself against a stone to spite them, nor that she would repay her freedom with a trap to snap down upon them.

They fall with nothing in the world but Hiccup's paws against Toothless' scales, their plummet giving Hiccup the wings Toothless has folded against his spine, and the knowledge that as the hidden shadows of the pit stretch out over them, they have each other –

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ fall, and the sea swallows them.

* * *

They do not fall forever, though for an instant, it seems so.

And then that moment ends, split in two by Shiver's cry of delight and welcome, and Toothless snaps his wings open in the narrowing throat of the pit, tumbling right-way-up again and backwinging. The maneuver spins him in a tight circle, twisting them both around close enough for Toothless to snap at his own tailfins, but it stops their descent quick enough to hover above the narrow spit of stone jutting out from the chasm walls.

The waterfall pours down around it, but beneath it, gleaming in the darker shadow among this dusk-dim realm, Shiver springs out onto a broader ledge, wriggling _joy_.

_You here! _she signals, her eyes shining _delight_. Ripples of sun-bright color, flickers of warm gold and shimmering cream, wash across her scales, and her ear-flaps perk up _wonder_.

She urges them _C'mon! _with a scraping paw, ducking back towards the shadow – is it a cave-mouth, hidden beneath this spur of slime-streaked rock? – without taking her bright blue eyes from them, or moving her paws at all. _Safe here promise good certain-sure I lead yes? yes-still? good that you good fly-fall up-down yes! c'mon urgent-important hurry you you-both want go c'mon now! home-nest here! nest safe here this-way c'mon!_

With a single beat of his wings, Toothless leaps down to the ledge beside her. The drenched stone is slippery beneath his paws, as so many sea-rocks are, and the momentary tracks he leaves are quickly erased by the spray. The waterfall's sides are very close here, and their roar deafening; when he glances away from Shiver and her _very_ hidden passageway, he sees that the water has much farther to fall. It vanishes into true darkness and is gone, taking all it carries inexorably with it.

He would not like to be caught in such a current, and on his shoulders, he senses Hiccup-_dearest_ pressing himself more closely against the new scars there, doubtless remembering other waters, other riptides, other fishing swims that turned into frantic struggles not to be swept away to drown.

Bristling _not-want_, Toothless sets his tail to the deeper pit and follows Shiver further.

She bounces an impatient _finally!_ and clicks a cheerful rebuke, bounding easily into the darkness with a high _looking_ shriek to guide her way; from her echoes, Toothless hears the shape of a widening cave, opening into a broad tunnel pierced by many stone fangs. He hears the gap between many that bite down and those that bite up, and the echoes from where they have met and melted into each other.

_What there?_ Hiccup chirrups, trembling _curious _and tapping his hindpaws _impatient_, and for Hiccup, Toothless calls up his fires into his jaws and holds them there, lighting up the cave with a purple-white glow.

The cave-mouth is narrow, but the cave passage beyond is big enough for many dragons to run and play. The stone teeth and the walls and the floor all glitter with crystals buried in them, too small to claw from the stone to bat around and listen to their chime.

Shiver stands among them, her nose to the ground, scenting at the stone for something her body's _frustration_ says she cannot find. When she looks up, there are shadows in her eyes that Toothless' firelight cannot burn away; a deep sadness there, but no surprise.

_That_, Shiver gestures brusquely, _disappointment _in her shoulders but not for him, at the fires glowing on his tongue. _Not-need you come you see you here glad very-much-so you you-both want here you good sure._

Shaking herself all the way from her nose to the end of her tail, Shiver snaps out her wings and flies, dancing through the stone teeth as neat as she flew through the open sky, and Toothless follows her without hesitation. His wings are wider, but _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _have been playing fly-close games all their lives.

When he must close his jaw and swallow his fires down, relying on his _looking_-sounds and his snap-quick memory of their echoes to hold the map of this deep dark place in his mind, he rumbles _comfort _to Hiccup-_mine_, who cannot hear echoes as his Toothless-_self_ can. Even as he flies, Toothless can feel his other half rest his head against the back of Toothless' skull, his fur soft against black scales, and knows Hiccup-_love _must have his eyes closed, trusting Toothless entirely to guide them and fly them true.

Toothless can feel the deep fall when it opens beneath him, empty and cold, where the distant roots of these huge stone teeth must be planted.

But he does not look. He will not fall. He will not be tricked by the flickering of strange, impossible lights on the edges of his vision, or the deep purple currents that seem to swim along with him, or the green flickers so dark they might be only what black dreams of being. If the stone seems to wake with their passing, Toothless knows it must not be a real thing, and only the imaginings of even a most fearless wanderer in a very new place indeed.

He does not think of the great weight of stone and ocean above his head; he is a creature born to caves.

He follows the echo of Shiver; she, he knows, is real.

But soon enough, there is light in the distance, strange and flickering and shifting, and Hiccup raises his head with a chirred _what? see there? look Toothless-love what that there?_

And they can see Shiver ahead of them, glancing back over her shoulder with _hope _in her eyes that they are still there –

And then the passage opens again, into –

Toothless has no words for it.

A cave, but a cave lit darkly. A cavern as rich with colors as a summer field, when the hidden life of the far north bursts into pushing, shoving, flamboyant hues, an ocean of small flowers striving for the long sun. Light shines from within the stone itself in shimmering stripes and spreading blotches, sage-purple and fir-green and fire-red and late-sun-gold and the glittering green-washed blue-black of the deep sea. Every shape of stone fills this space – and there are more beyond, Toothless realizes, this is one cavern but the stone over _there _is so distant it must be another. Sharp spires jut up from a ground so far below even Toothless' head swims, struggling to make sense of the distance – and oh, that spire is so much _bigger _than he thought, and so much further away, because there is a dragon perched upon it – no, there are _many _dragons perched upon it, and he recognizes those shapes. They are mostly like fire-skin cousins and yet not quite, but they look so _small _from here!

Toothless has never seen a garden, nor would he understand one. But if he had, he might have thought of this cave as like a garden run wild, everything piled into one place and more, exploding into a riot of color and shape, and everything glowing with its own light.

He backwings, startled and astonished. His cry of _disbelief _and _amazement_, _what this here look shock what? what? how look that there don't-understand curious surprise wonder look this big-big-big far wonder_ tangles itself together with Hiccup's gasp of _beautiful! Look-look-look Toothless-beloved dragons here!_ as if the two sounds must hold onto each other to stay afloat in a sea of wonder as the waves line up to knock them down.

The menacing throat of the maelstrom, the roaring threat of the waterfall, the fanged darkness of the hidden passage – all as different from this place as the ice-spiked shell of their own home-nest is from the lush, warm, busy sanctuary it hides, a snarling defense to protect the treasured secret within.

Toothless gasps in a breath in surprise, and all the smells of the hidden nest pour over him – sea water, but tinged with the complex stillness of deep caves much disturbed by those who run and fly through them, and a whole deep forest's worth of sharp new smells he does not know, prickling in his nose like a fizzing iceberg, and ancient stone, and a scent of fire and musk so familiar, it strikes him like a sharp-swatting paw.

Dragons.

Shiver soars into the underground air of her hidden nest with a full-throated cry of _triumph_, and all across the cavern, dragon heads and dragon eyes turn to follow her, staring as she flips and tumbles and flares her wings wide. Bright colors ripple across them exultantly, and she matches the endlessly bright colors of her impossible world.

* * *

Home!

She is _home!_

She has flown further than _anyone_, and seen things no one will believe, and escaped a monster more fearsome than any whisper in the darkness for pitiful little _bullies _to threaten her with, and she has brought home a prize _no one _can match!

The roof of the world spreads out above her again, as it should, gleaming with lights that flicker and fade until she dives up and touches her nose against one of them, and another, waking them again. Furling her wings momentarily, she tumbles back down to soar around her Marvel, _hers_, and chirrup _laughter _as he hovers and stares.

What does he think of her world? She cannot tell. All his signals are struck silent, stillness locked rigid into his wings as he glides. His green eyes – _no one _here has green eyes anymore; Teal Eyes is so very proud of hers – jump around even this one cavern as if he does not know what to stare at first.

Oh, she has so much to _show _him, her Marvel!

On his back, his Magpie coos _wonder_, deep and true, and Edge feels fire-hot _pride _flicker across her chest, her heart-fires showing through her scales like one of the flitabouts who glow always.

She can feel the eyes of her flock-mates on her, but the Edge who would have cowered from them, drawing up her fade partway and crouching before them lest she give offense? That Edge flew away and fell. Another Edge returns to show them all how clever she has been.

_C'mon!_ she calls again, flicking her tail at Marvel and flashing her tongue in a grin at his amazement. _We go!_

And he follows, he follows, he follows _her!_

Edge leads her Marvel through the wide-open spaces of her home, whistling _look-at-me_ without fear, calling _hello!_ to those who do not at once look at her, singing _hey!_ in _looking_-sounds to echo off the stone teeth and catch her in their reflections, so that all her cousins who listen will hear. She prances in leaps and shudders and very sharp lunges, slapping her tail and her claws against bright-stone to wake it, marking her journey through this cave in living color for all to see.

Faces stream by her all in a blur as the dragons she has known all her life, who have never _seen _her, stare at her now.

And Marvel follows, true-black wings spread like her shadow, and every dragon who looks at her?

They see him too.

In her wake, Edge hears her flock leaping into the air, scrambling after her, twittering and chattering in disbelief and amazement. Her flock-mates race across the stone leaving glowing pawprints in their wake, chasing after her to see, to see, to _see!_

And she does not fade at all.

* * *

There are many caves in the real world, all different, all favored by some and not by others. There are tunnels where many dragons go often, and there are passageways where Edge has hidden, whining her _lonelies_ and her _jealousies_, knowing no one will tread on her tail by accident.

But the great cave with the fishing lake – the stone sky above it riddled with wake-lights, the broad shore spreading out from it trodden smooth by the pawsteps of all the dragons who have ever lived here – is the closest the real world has to a heart. It is where the most food can be found, for all currents in the flooded tunnels lead here. Here, hatchlings can play safely, watched by all. In the shadows, far into the lake, the Dark Rock where no dragon paws must tread sits quietly, waiting alone.

Edge ducks her head to it neatly as she circles over the lake, turning her wings to the shore. She has brought it not just _one _who may visit it, but _two!_

There are always many dragons by the shimmering deep lake, but as she alights on the shore, Edge believes there have never been so many gathered here, huddled together wide-eyed and staring, their heads turning from her to the pure-black dragon and his companion landing at her side.

_Good you here_, Edge signals to them, raising her head _proud_ and trembling with _excitement_ to have Marvel's paws, dark as the deepest caves, stand beside her own.

There is so much _amazement _in him, trembling through him with every breath. His – their – nest must not be nearly as right and good and proper; she sees her lifelong home through new eyes, reflected in his. He stares so! She wants to nudge her nose against his shoulder and run with him through all the caves, showing him her world. No one will dare turn them aside with such a one beside her.

On Marvel's other side, Magpie scrambles down, his movements strange but easy. The littler dragon sets his shoulder against Marvel's _reassurance_, murmuring sounds so soft, Edge can barely hear them, much less understand. Out of the side of her eyes, Edge can see him shelter beneath Marvel's still half-spread wings, all but hidden except for his green-and-white eyes and his light patches.

Magpie stares back at the gathered dragons with his head tipped to the side _curiosity_, like the black-and-white birds Edge had puzzled over, unsure if they were friend or foe or food, and then could not catch anyway. They were quick, and they were strange-new, and they chattered to each other and to her in bright sounds, and when she left fish-scraps scattered, not liking the taste and giddy with how _many_ there were, one had hopped almost beneath her nose on its two legs to snatch up a piece of what was hers, so fearlessly.

The flock of the real world stares back, silent and baffled, uncertain but amazed. Beneath Marvel's wings, spread as if he might fly even as Magpie purrs _easy calm you love-you patience careful look wonder those-there here-I-am us together_, the little dragon works his strange paws among the bindings that Marvel does not seem to _mind_, and had snorted _mine-ours!_ at her when she mewled over them.

Edge spreads her own wings _triumph_ and stares back _challenge_ to all who look at her with _disbelief _in their eyes and _confusion _flashed in rippling colors. Too exhilarated to stand still, she paces back and forth a few steps, longing to shriek to make all the stones echo. Only then would her sounds be loud enough.

Magpie untangles that savaged, lost dragon, only its hide remaining, from Marvel's bindings, and sets it very carefully at his own paws, stroking a forepaw over it as carefully as any nesting mother. He crouches over it defensively, and only then does he stare back at all who watch him and Marvel both.

_You!_ an aggrieved shriek splits the breathless, awed silence, and Patch pounces to the ground before them, his eyes fixed only on Edge.

_You what you how-dare-you small-silly not-important you-small you-DARE where you you lost deepbelow? fine-good don't-care you go you where? _His voice climbs like claws scrabbling for a grip on a sheer and crumbling wall, frantic and furious.

Patch is bigger than all dragons the same shape as Edge, and he leads their flock with his teeth bared. Edge has scars from him, where he has swatted her away with his claws turned in to tear. But he may do so; his markings are boldest. Grey-black scales cover one of his eyes, lying like a shadow across half his face and spilling all the way down his neck and shoulder. They sweep out partway along his side, and taper out in splashes like droplets. Part of his foreleg is grey-black as well.

No one else has so many markings, and such things are treasured here.

_Small you small you bad! _Patch howls, his white scales darkening red-shadowed with anger for her defiance. He bares his teeth and stands tall over her, rearing up and spreading his wings to show off the grey-black spots that dust them, when she will not crouch and lower her eyes _submission_.

Edge sets her shoulders _stubborn_ and Patch snarls, berating her for venturing where _good _dragons, dragons who _belong_, do not go. He knew – he had only pretended he had not, preferring that she be lost deepbelow than that she had ventured _up_.

_There NO! no no no! bad you! go-away you no-go you know you better how-dare-you bad! bad you! I hit _–

And Marvel steps between Patch's raised paw and her.

Edge would fly up _all _the forbidden waterfalls to see such disbelief in Patch's eyes again.

Their black-patched Alpha looks at Marvel with incomprehension; his flock does not _defy _him so. Even more than going to see the waterfall with the on-off light – _she _knows why that happens now! – it is Not Done.

She would find even more waterfalls to see the moment when Patch blinks and sees Marvel truly – a stranger bigger than him, with the lean fierceness of a dragon who can fly so fast even lighter, smaller, well-practiced Edge must work very hard to keep pace, who wears his scars without shame, whose true-green eyes are hard as crystal-stone.

_No_, the true-black dragon forbids him.

Patch recoils, _shock _in his eyes, but he rallies and snarls. _You?_ he snorts. _This? who this?_ he demands, rounding on Edge. _This what this lie bad you – _but she can hear _uncertainty _in his voice. There is no dragon this shape this big in the world. All dragons in the world are known.

_Not-funny!_ Patch snaps anyway, growling at her, bristling at Marvel as the Alpha paces aside, searching for the flash of white scales beneath that impossible flood of black. _You do? You this? _and he shrieks the mocking cry of _fake!_ for a young one who thinks that because she has burnt many mushrooms and streaked their ashes across her scales when no one was watching, she will fool her flock-mates into thinking she has markings too.

Patch snarls _Bad!_ and lunges for her.

Marvel steps between them again, and Edge purrs _satisfaction _right down to the tips of her tail-fins.

Her find.

Her friend.

Hers forever, if she can keep him.

Beyond fuming, baffled Patch, Edge sees the flock pushing each other, heads craning high and eyes staring in fascination, watching their Alpha fail to rebuke the blank-scaled little dragon who slunk around on the edge of things, until she had nowhere to go but where she should not.

They have no fierce dangers to run from here, only each other to play with and fight with. They tell each other stories, and they set each other dares, and they trick each other for things that do not change, that move from one to another and back again. This is a new thing.

Even the flitabouts are here, though they do not speak and do not understand. The bright-inside dragonets go where others are, and all the others are here. Clustered on the peaks and ledges and spires of the bright-stone outcroppings, the rock glowing and flashing beneath their warmth, all Edge's flock-mates watch the Marvel she found and led home as he defends her.

_Her._

Unnoticed – except by Marvel; Edge suspects Marvel sees him always – Magpie watches all of them, faithfully guarding their Lost One. Little dragon, but clever, she knows.

_No you this – this not-so not-true this lie! bad lie you liar you lie! _Patch declares, hackling. He darts his head forward with his jaw locked shut, snubbing his nose against Marvel's scales, and draws back huffing _told-you-so_ – and yelps _shock_ when no white scales show, and no ashes darken his nose.

_No!_ Patch insists, and lunges at Marvel, who stumbles backwards, as confused as Patch.

A step, and another, and –

_Splash!_

Water flies, and Magpie cries out to see his Marvel shoved untouched into the lake, but his voice is drowned out by the sounds of all the flock crying out too.

_So there!_ Patch shrieks victoriously, stalking back towards his flock with his back hunched aggressively. _Fake!_

There is a moment's breathless silence, and deep inside, Edge smiles.

Behind him, calmly, Marvel stands up again, quite soaked, quite unchanged. He paces out of the water and dutifully shakes one paw dry, then another, then the others in turn. He licks droplets from his chest and sides and ruffles them away from his wings, shuddering water from his spine-fins and flicking it from his tail. He shakes all his ear-flaps dry with a snort.

_Hey!_ Marvel snaps, and when Patch turns in disbelief to face him, tackles their Alpha headlong.

It is the shortest fight Edge has ever seen, and she has been the loser of far too many.

Marvel knocks Patch down as if he were…_her_. Bright-stone flares beneath Patch as he crashes down, and at once Marvel is on him, fangs bared, snapping closed on the black-splotched dragon's throat.

He holds Patch there, but he does not bite through. He snarls _stop-that!_ but when Patch tries to scrabble away, terrified into silence, Marvel lets him go.

And with everyone watching, Marvel turns away, padding back to his Magpie with a snort. Edge's eyes crinkle _laughter_ as she recognizes the sound.

_Rude_, says Marvel.

The black dragon sits down very deliberately, opens his mouth to show the flock all his fangs bared, and snaps them away. _No-threat_.

And as Patch turns on his flock, scared and humiliated as _she _has been so often, chasing them away with shrieks and snarls and fire threatening, forbidding them to _stare_ so, ordering them to turn their tails to these strangers who should not be here, who are not real, who do not belong – most go, but not far – Marvel leans into Magpie's touch and sighs. The two dragons chirrup to each other for a moment, although Edge does not understand the way they speak only to each other, before Marvel turns to her with _puzzlement _in his eyes and his Magpie's same inquisitive tilt to his head.

_Who THAT?_ the black dragon asks.

Dragons can smirk. Edge does.

_Not-important_, she says.

_C'mon_, she urges them both before Marvel or Magpie can ask more questions. They are home now; they will learn. Or they will shape the truth to suit them, and she will have an Alpha to stand for her_._

Who will banish her to the Edge of Things _now_?

Edge flicks her nose at the Lost One that Magpie guards, his scattered colors gleaming amid his black scales beneath the richly colored, living light of the real world. _That you-both c'mon that safe want yes? I show._

* * *

There is too _much _to look at; it is all Hiccup can do to keep his eyes on Shiver's tail as she leads them still onwards, padding across the stone and leaving glowing pawprints in her wake. They fade before Toothless can reach them, and then his pawprints wake hers again. Beside him, Hiccup's steps are flicker-light, fast-fading, but the stone recognizes his fires too.

If he turns to look, Hiccup knows he will stumble over his paws and slip, and there are so many dragons watching them! A two-heads cousin/s without horns or frills, their heart-fires glowing through their scales, wrap themselves up very small to fit on a ledge and crane their heads down as Shiver and the dragon-pair walk beneath them. Above them, a dragon Like Them, his scales as pink-flushed as the earliest morning, freezes stone-still when Toothless looks at him, and then scorches away into the cavern air with a shriek half _excitement _and half _fear._ In the shadows of a stone outcropping, its pieces blocky and sharp-edged, like a pile of stones cut by _pfikingr_ had melted all together, many small dragons cluster together and chatter _that-there? how? look there! look look! look you look! _Hiccup can see their eyes reflecting the lights like winter sky-fires within the stone.

And those are only the ones just here!

Hiccup is deeply aware that he and his Toothless-_self _are strangers in this nest. They are allowed here; they were asked here; they may even be welcomed here, now that that black-patched dragon has fled defeated, and Hiccup is not particularly sorry for that. The dragon-pair will mind their steps carefully, take nothing they are not invited to, push no one else from their nest, offer no threat – but Toothless has shown already that just because _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are polite does not make them weak.

They will respect the flock of this _beautiful_ secret nest, if the dragons here respect them too.

Elsewhere, there are many places that cry out to be explored. It is the most varied cavern Hiccup has ever seen, and part of him longs to race away and dig his claws into the crags, peer over the edges of cliffs, walk along the heights of ledges, watch this world from sharp outcroppings, splash into the hollows, wind around the stone teeth, dare himself and his Toothless-_self _to touch all the spires, and bat pebbles into the yawning pits.

Maybe later, when they understand this nest better, then they can play. Then they can meet the dragon-cousins watching them so raptly, and learn each of them one by one.

Now, Shiver leads them around the shore of the underground lake. The water ripples beneath the fluttering wings of dragons, but with a deeper eddy that Hiccup recognizes as a current, not to be swum into until he knows if it can drag him away. Small dragons that are swept into flooded, underground passageways often do not come up again, and the dragons here are as varied, but noticeably smaller, than those of their king's flock.

The flock of the bright-stone nest must know this too – there are no dragons paddling in the water, though some hover above it or fish from the shore. Or pretend to, and stare instead.

_Uncertain_, Toothless signals to him, very small, in ways that strangers would not see. To them, he shows only _bold_ and _unafraid_.

Hiccup follows his dragon-heart down a shallow slope, leaping from stone to Toothless' shoulders and down again. _Here me here together-us brave_, he pats against Toothless' scales.

_Don't-know she look she we go maybe-for-now this-though_, he glances at the Lost One, wrapped up on Toothless' back again. _Curious where why here not-afraid they why no – good relief good – _he adds hastily, because if so many dragons panicked at the sight of them carrying one Like Them, dead but not gone, the dragon-pair could not fight them all to escape.

Some of their watchers are hidden by the high reach of stone that Shiver, her head held very high, leads them to. More hackle at the sight of the tunnel the white dragon stands in, beckoning them _follow _once more, and retreat.

_Why they go?_ Toothless asks.

_They all here no-go not-allowed may-not_, Shiver answers readily, her eyes still crinkled _pleased _at Toothless. _This good this sad maybe-both? dragons here away dragons this this this _– she taps her nose against her white scales, then waves her tail at the passageway – _there no._

_You-though_, she signals to both of them, _you this you here belonging-good right certain-sure important-good this yours!_

Hiccup and Toothless glance at each other, puzzled. Why would this tunnel belong to them? Is this to be their sleeping-nest, until they return home?

_I show_, Shiver offers again, half-crouching _submission _and _invitation_, as if they must grant her permission, when _they _are the strangers here. _you want? you say._

Toothless snorts, baffled and impatient and wary. _You show!_ he confirms, and Shiver bounces up _pleased_, her scales washing sky-blue.

_C'mon,_ she reminds them, and leads them into the tunnel.

There are fewer lights here, only traces along the walls and their lit-up pawprints. Shiver warns them _no-touch!_ when she sees Hiccup reaching out to trail a forepaw across a thick pile of blobby mushrooms hiding in the dark, and whistles _you-too!_ to Toothless, so they tread more carefully, keeping to the dry stone. Hiccup keeps his side against Toothless' flank, more for comfort than for guidance. This tunnel is no darker than any of those in their home-nest, and Hiccup has been racing freely through those all his life, with only the slightest glimmer of light to lead him.

This tunnel does indeed feel a little more like home. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ could sleep here – but no, they are going somewhere.

Besides, Hiccup would have to break at least _some _of those mushrooms, just for the game of it, and he has _just _promised himself that he will follow this flock's rules.

The tunnel leads them down, and then climbs back up again, and before long, Shiver and the black dragons at her tail leap and scramble up and out into the multicolored, living lights of the deep nest.

They have only been here for moments, and yet Hiccup is already building a map of this nest on instinct, sketching it out in his memories so he knows where he is and where he could go from here and where others might come from. So it takes him only a moment to realize where they are now, although he has only seen it from above and from afar.

There – that is the shore where Shiver alit to greet her flock, and where Black Patch challenged Toothless. This is the deep lake, but all around them now. They are atop the lonely dark stone island set far back in the lake's shadows, jutting out from the depths – they have walked to it beneath the water! – like a ledge.

Back home, a rock like this would be swarmed with hatchlings – and some very dignified bigger dragons – plunging and pushing each other into the lake, scrambling from the water to splash back up to do it all again. Here, it is deserted. Small depressions, scattered across its surface, are clogged with those bulbous mushrooms, glowing deepest green but with hidden sparks in their depths. Hiccup sets a paw against one gently, and its clammy surface gives beneath his touch. So there cannot be dragons here _ever_, or else they would all be broken, and they sprout from the stone like so many frozen bubbles.

Beside him, Toothless pads carefully across the stone, exploring, and raises his head to scan the cavern. Far across the lake, dragons shriek _disbelief _and _celebration_, taking off into the air and scattering away.

_You look_, Shiver whistles for their attention, the shrill sound muffled and tentative, like there is a quiet here not to be disturbed.

Behind the mouth of the tunnel passage, the stone rears up high, like an upturned paw with its claws curled. Small niches and hollows riddle the dark stone, many of them choked with delicate fern-sprays or reaching vines, glowing with their own light. Some of them seem empty, but only because, as Hiccup sees when he and Toothless join Shiver where she crouches, following her gaze, they are not hollows.

They are pits, broad and deep, and the one Shiver signals to is scorched black. Hiccup cannot tell how deep it is; there is nothing in it but dark, charred dust.

At first, they do not understand.

_Sad_, Shiver cries, low and sorrowful. She howls _lost _that is _dead_, endless and grieving, crouching in on herself. _There in-there_. Her scales briefly darkening to grey, the white dragon taps her nose against Toothless' chest, flicks an ear-flap at the Lost One, glances at Hiccup too, and back to the pit –

– the ashes –

– again.

_Dragons_, Shiver says, spreading her wings and signaling _all-here_. _you dragons you that good this you-watch!_

She takes a deep breath, and darkness floods over her scales; she cannot match _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, but she clearly means _black dragons_. The color does not last, and anxious _strain _melts from her delicate lines as she lets the shade go, her own white returning to her.

_Here_, says Shiver, _here this here all this nest mine home-nest yes they here._ She mewls _wonder_, sighs _awe_, stares _impressed_ very keenly, her scales shimmering through iridescent purples and bright golds and sighing greens. She claims those dragons _ours_, flicking her tail wide, but laments _far-away they where no-more._

_Grieving_, she wails softly, her scales grey, _gone lost dead deepest-truest-sad._

She opens her jaws and calls up her own bright fires, turning them to the ashes in the pit. _Here._

And Shiver crouches all the way down to the ground in submission and respect.

_Alpha_, she says.

Rising, Shiver shakes herself, and splotches of black appear across her scales, some here, some there, some broad, some few – she shows them the memories of many dragons. _Hatchlings_, she signals. _Us. These good._

Her ear-flaps go down, though, as those black patches fade and leave her blank white again. She has no marks, and she crouches _small me not-important those no._

Toothless steps forward on reflex to lick her bowed head _comfort_, even as he reels, his eyes fixed on that dark cave, cringing into Hiccup's paws in disbelief.

There were black dragons here once, Hiccup and Toothless understand her story to say, _shock _flashing between them in glances and gasps. Perhaps not many, to be wondered over so, but there were a few. Perhaps those black dragons had wandered here too, and they had stayed to lead, to be Alphas here. They had flown winter-white mates, and their hatchlings had been part one and part another, the few mixing into the many with not enough to share evenly among all –

And when they had died, their flock had brought them _here_, to this little cave right in front of the dragon-pair now, and burned them rightly as the Lost One would not burn. But there is no free and chasing wind far underground to carry them away, and so their ashes have stayed.

Dragons Like Them were here, and are here still.

Kept hidden and safe, remembered and protected, somewhere they once belonged.

But gone.

Sitting back on his haunches, Hiccup rests his head against Toothless' shoulder, beneath his throat, and Toothless leans into him with his head lowered, folding themselves together and grounding themselves on each other as they grieve.

The dragon-feral lost the ability to weep as a child, when the only family he had left, and the only family he remembered, did not recognize that signal – it was no use to him. He regained it only recently, and it still unsettles him, to know there is an ocean inside him when there should be _fire_.

But sometimes, when his world breaks open over him, and both halves of himself are swept away in it together, Hiccup can cry.

_Here_, Hiccup gestures, swiping salt water away with the backs of his claws, _this ours Lost-One sad thing __sad lost egg sad regret grieving hurt_ _here sad._

This is where the Lost One is meant to go. With the dead who were Like Them All, to sleep forever in a bed of ashes.

_Safe here,_ Toothless agrees, and stands very still, only his eyes tracking his Hiccup-self's movements, as Hiccup takes the slight weight of the dragon's skin from his back for the last time.

Only a few upright steps, the lost dragon Like Them in his paws like a hatchling, and then Hiccup lets their kin-cousin go.

* * *

The dragon-pair sit for awhile as they would beside a hatchling's nest, guarding it while it sleeps and breathing each other's scents, and at a distance, Shiver sits vigil with them, waiting quietly.

Across the lake, there are the stirred-up sounds of the hidden nest, exclaiming over the return of one like their long-ago Alphas.

But here, there is the peace of the dead at rest, and of two dragons who are a single self, who have done what they left their home to do.

* * *

_To be continued._


	14. Chapter 14

_**Freefall, **_**Part Fourteen**

What has she forgotten?

Astrid's never been so grateful for Berk's sullen weather. Brooding, low, dark-grey clouds wallow overhead like so many muddy, disgruntled sheep, without a flicker of lightning in their bellies; she wouldn't try this in a storm. It's the sort of black night that sends normally brash Vikings sulking for their beds or the cavernous comfort of the Great Hall and as much human, familiar noise as possible.

A dark night for dark work, Astrid might have said if she was someone else entirely, but since she's herself, and intends to carry on being so, she pins down the thought with one foot and steps on it until it squeaks.

"– and try to get the hall doors nailed up," she goes on, running down her list of things for Gobber to keep an eye on, feeling as if she's careening down a staircase. If she slows down or tries to stop, she'll lose her footing entirely, and the ground far below is so very hard.

"Fishing boats stay in harbor, out of sight. I know how much everyone hates the rationing, but it could take ages for those ships to get a clue and give up on us, depending on how much they're paying attention." She really hopes that, just for tonight, they're not. Or that the twins' distraction works to draw all eyes away from the flock of dragons they're trying to smuggle by over their enemies' heads and away.

"The Terrors are getting into those storage caverns somehow, so there's probably a rat hole that needs sealing. I've asked Gothi to see what she can do about them, since they're not coming with us. I'd love to see that lot try to steal Terrors; they're not exactly combat dragons –"

"Ruddy little pests, though," Gobber tries to put in, but Astrid's too busy counting off things on her fingers. She may be leaving Gobber in charge temporarily, but if she doesn't keep him busy, she suspects she'll come back to a Berk overrun by mechanical monstrosities.

Actually, maybe that'd be a good thing. Maybe their indestructible blacksmith will come up with something truly terrifying and all the ships will have run for their sorry little lives by the time she gets back. Then she'll just have to chase down the ones with their dragons aboard.

She should be so lucky.

"Keep Sven and Thurston off the same patrol, would you? Sven borrowed Thurston's third-best sword to get that tree stump out of the south field, and he's still sore about it."

"Aye, I 'member, I fixed the bluidy thing –"

"And do feel free to punch Spitelout if he opens his big mouth one more time. Maybe if you hit him hard enough, he'll notice."

Even in the faint light from the couple of torches and small hand lanterns scattered around the field, glinting off shifting dragon scales, Astrid can see Gobber roll his eyes. How he's kept both of those, when he's down to just one of most other things, she has no idea.

"Tell me again, why don'cha?" he snorts. "That'll be the fourth time." She knows. "We'll be fine, Chief! Ye'll jest be gone a couple a' days, right? Berk can manage more than tha' wi'out a chief – di'n't Stoick go off a-questing for the dragons' nest for months a' a time?"

"I suppose," Astrid admits reluctantly. Stoick's never again mentioned the way she'd clung to his leg the first time he'd gone off on one of those journeys, trying to keep him from leaving. It had been a couple of years after she'd come to live with him, but the last person she'd seen leave her in pursuit of dragons had been Finn, and she'd remembered all too well.

No one on Berk had ever found the nest, of course. The lucky ones had come home. Finn hadn't.

Stoick had, though. She'll come back, too.

"And I've got this big fella to help me, aye?"

"Hey," Eret says from the darkness, and Astrid will just have to imagine the disgruntled scowl. "I said I'd sweep your forests for nets and dart tripwires, see what my guys can do about disarming them. Never said _anything _about wrangling all your crazy Vikings. Rather go back to dragons."

Gobber snorts, glaring back over his shoulder. "Eh, well, mebbe I'll see 'bout turfin' Stoick outta his house, then. All sorts o' burrs I kin put in his blankets, if I hafta."

Before Astrid can get over this rather alarming image, Gobber pats his hand on her boot and says, "Ye just worry 'bout this lot, Chief. Get 'em out safe."

As if she's done anything else but worry since she and her friends started working out this plan for real. It was never going to be easy, persuading every dragon in the village to do the same thing all at the same time. Dragons, like Vikings, can argue over anything, and so many of them delight in looking right at what they're supposed to be doing, and immediately running off to do something else.

But the gold and green eyes watching her where she stands on the big rock at the edge of the field, the one even the Gronkles couldn't move and so they'd just dug out the furrows around it, are anxious and restless. So many of them are cowering low beside the human friends who'd led them here.

Gronkles and Nadders and Zipplebacks and Nightmares, scattered haphazardly across the field that, a lifetime ago, Astrid had been waiting for Eret to bring seeds back home for. Some of them wear ragged collars; most of them wear scars; that the same people put both on them is some kind of miracle.

Stormfly stands ready at Astrid's side, all the metal in her harness wrapped and muted as she shifts from foot to foot uneasily. Astrid's axe is strapped tightly to her dragon's shoulder, where it won't foul Stormfly's wings. If all goes well, she'll never have to draw it.

If all goes well, every dragon in this field will get away from the men who've come here to trap and enslave them. If all goes well, every dragon in this field will come home to the people who reached out their hands and said, "Come on, we have to go, trust me, you're not safe here," however they'd said it.

Astrid has very little faith in all going well. She's from Berk.

Nothing binds all these dragons to this place. No chains wrap around Nightmare throats, no ropes around Zippleback paws. The only thing that's brought them here is that, despite everything, these dragons have learned to trust these humans. Astrid's here to make sure that achievement doesn't go to waste.

The thing is, Astrid has learned these past few years, that dragons aren't stupid. Oh, she always knew they were _cunning_ – she'd learned the hard way to spot a dragon's chosen target from the way its eyes moved and its muzzle turned, and to decide in a split-second whether she should leap to meet it with her axe swinging or get out of its way as fast as she could.

But they're intelligent, too, even if it isn't always in a way she understands. They may not think the way she does, but they know they're in danger. Astrid saw the dragons she called out to rescue Gustav's gang fussed over by their friends, yowling and shuddering and yipping their alarm and fear and being cooed over. They were so _obviously _talking to each other that Astrid had wanted to bang her head against a wall for not seeing it years ago.

(She'd settled for banging a hammer into some iron nails, helping to put a protective barrier up around the well. Berk really doesn't need a flying tar ball splashing into their main source of drinking water, and no one ever leaves the lid down.)

"Good girl," Astrid murmurs now, resting a hand on Stormfly's head to calm her. "I think they heard us."

She knows Stormfly understands her, at least some of the time, and so it had been Stormfly she'd explained all this to, keeping it as simple as she could in hand signals and baby talk.

_We're flying away. We're hiding. Danger here. Everyone comes._

She'd trusted Stormfly to translate for her, as she said it all again to every dragon she could find, her Nadder friend stalking beside her.

There's no way she has every dragon on Berk gathered in front of her – she knows for a fact they're missing Barf and Belch, and if there's some dragonish rumor mill that would get word out to the wild ones, Astrid isn't in on it. Also, she tasked Edda and Madge and Ingeborg with gathering up the Terrors and getting them out of the way almost an hour ago, by her count.

But in the pit-darkness, she can hear the shifting scales and subdued whines and muttered growls of every dragon left in the village. A few years ago, she'd have been met with disbelieving laughter if she asked her people if they would be willing to stand in the middle of a crowd of dragons, and yet now Astrid can also hear the quiet reassurances of all the Vikings who have gathered here to wait with them, holding them steady.

Not that many of them were happy about it, which Astrid is obscurely pleased about. She's spent more time in the last two days arguing with Vikings about this plan than she has trying to explain it to dragons, and felt like a hypocrite every moment. _She's _not happy about this plan. It's just still the best bad plan they have.

_And then_, she's promised everyone, _I come back. We get the captive dragons back – and we get them out too. The fleet goes away when they've got nothing to steal. And the dragons come home._

Simple, right? As long as she hasn't forgotten anything.

One stepping-stone at a time, no matter how slippery they are, and all Astrid can do is hope no one moves them while she waves her arms and teeters and desperately tries not to fall in between leaps.

And her riders are in this with her – mostly. She has no idea where the twins are, which is sort of like saying that she has no idea where a giant, hovering, invisible bubble of paint is: someone isn't going to be happy, and she can only hope it's not going to be her.

Somewhere out to her right, Snotlout and Fearsome are pacing back and forth, ready – she hopes – to fly perimeter, to herd wandering dragons back into the pack until they're all away and safe.

Somewhere off to her left, Fishlegs and Minnow, his fastest Gronkle, should be ready to keep the stocky smaller dragons all moving together. Fishlegs swears they'll bunch up on the egg-bearing female, whatever her name is – Astrid can't keep track of all Fishlegs' Gronkles when she's got a midair, midnight jailbreak to orchestrate with escapees who _can't talk to her_.

"Psst! Astrid!"

Except for the ones who can.

Astrid only realizes she's pulling on her braid, which she's put her hair back up in to keep it out of her eyes, when she clambers down from her rock and finds she needs to use both hands in the near-darkness. "Fishlegs, what's the matter?"

"No, it's not, we're as good as we can be," he whispers, his voice high with the tension Astrid hopes isn't quite as clear in hers. "I just should have checked before – so if we get separated, we head north, right? To Hiccup and Toothless' home?"

Astrid remembers that fantastical, impossible island, its shattered ice spires glittering even as the ruin and damage of war blackened its frozen shores. She's never going to forget it if she lives a hundred years.

"No," she says anyway. "That lot out there," she explains, pointing back at the village and the ships beyond, even though there are ships in all directions, "they know where it is, remember?" She might not, though. She'd gotten there the hard way, some of it in the depths of Drago's flagship, and had slept for an embarrassing amount of the journey home.

"They attacked it once, and if they give up here and decide to take another shot at it, I don't want to leave our dragons in the next line of fire. That's not helping anyone. I don't think they will, though," she admits, "because they lost there, and they lost scary."

A Bewilderbeast could destroy any of those ships easily, if it turned its attention to them. She doubts her Wildfire friend's "dragon chief" would give Drago's fleet a second chance to get away.

"We're going somewhere I _know _they don't know about."

_And besides,_ she doesn't say, _we might not be welcome. _Dragons are territorial; she's counted on that before. She'd originally wanted to train dragons to defend Berk from dragons. Later on, she'd pointed them at Dagur's now-laughable excuse for a raiding fleet, intruding on _their _home, and suggested it might make a fun toy.

Hiccup and Toothless may know and somewhat trust her and the other dragonriders, but she doesn't believe for a moment that all their wild friends will. What if they flew all the way out there only to be met with fangs and fire, chased away again?

_And besides_, she doesn't say, _I don't want our dragons to think we're sending them away for good._

Everyone comes home. She's promised. And if she led their dragons to a place where only dragons are welcome and left them there, could she really blame them for thinking that she had sent them away for good? That they'd been rejected, and they weren't wanted anymore? She's worked too hard to persuade them that they are.

_No_, Astrid vows. _They belong with us; they are our friends and our neighbors, and they are part of _my _tribe, and they _never, ever _need to think they're more welcome there than they are here._

"No," she says aloud, turning slowly in place to orient herself. The village is that way, some faint lights still visible through the trees. That shadow blotting out the sky is the low mountain, its cliff faces belonging to a much taller one. Is that a flame, or a star? It's too high…oh, no, that's the twins' treehouse, and Astrid shoves aside the reflexive impulse to yell at them for leaving a candle burning unattended, because she doesn't know where they are.

And anyway, Ruffnut and Tuffnut might consider _you'll burn the whole bloody forest down _to be a prediction it would be rude to leave unfulfilled.

She can't see the stars through the heavy clouds, but Astrid knows Berk, even in the deep dark.

"We head that way," she points.

Fishlegs thinks about it for a second; Astrid can hear the moment when he gets it. "Oh. How do you know they can't find us there?"

"Because Dagur's here," Astrid replies confidently, reliving his howl of frustrated rage with smug pleasure. "And I'm not the one he really wants. I'm just the one he could find."

And then there's nothing to do but to send Fishlegs back to his post, and to try to remind Gobber about just a few more last things. The ragged old smith huffs at her, hooks a low-burning lantern away from the nearest unwary Viking, and stumps off back to the village, grabbing Eret by the arm in passing and hauling the protesting former trapper along. She can hear them arguing all the way up the path, under the sound of shifting dragon wings. It sounds like they're having fun.

At least someone is.

And then there's really nothing to do but climb back up her rock and wait. It's past midnight, and they need to get moving – what's taking the twins so long? Usually all Astrid has to do is say "snap", and those two have broken something, and are yelling at each other in the wreckage. They've got a long way to go, and the dark doesn't last long, this time of year.

Tension coils in Astrid's gut like a serpent growing there, stretching tighter with every breath, plucked like a bowstring by every heartbeat. She locks her hands behind her back to keep from pulling on her braid again, turning her face towards the village, waiting for whatever distraction Ruffnut and Tuffnut have cooked up to start.

Fear claws at her heart like a monster out of her dreams, settling behind her ribs and chewing on her spine; she can feel its spittle slide down her back beneath her skin, as cold as frost. The stone beneath her boots is solid, but she's all too aware of how thin the ice she stands on is. A single failure, just one thing she's forgotten or that's slipped beneath her notice, and a single flaw in that ice will fracture out into a dozen, a hundred, until it all comes tumbling down. The water below is midwinter cold and dark, racing away beneath her feet so _fast_. If she goes down just once, she'll be swept away and never come back up…

Against it, she sets the fire burning in every inch of her, eager to lash out at the people who think they can come here and treat her like a child and a fool, someone not even worth fighting, just brushed aside and ignored. She's got lives to save, so she'll trick them better; if she can dance this dance just perfectly, the satisfaction of deceiving them right back will be as bright as dragonfire.

Astrid rests one hand on Stormfly's head, and takes a deep breath when her friend warbles softly at her, and even in the darkness, refuses to show her fear.

She still jumps, just like everyone else, when the deafening _roar_ of a massive explosion splits the midnight air.

The sound is so loud it's almost not a sound at all – it's a _thing_, slapping a huge, flat hand against the side of her head, setting her ears ringing and knocking her entire world dizzyingly askew. It slams through the trees and bounces off those cliff faces she'd just been eyeing, sending waves of echoes across the world; a few months ago, everyone would already be yelling "'ware avalanche!" and making everything worse. Vikings do that.

Astrid had asked for _loud_, she'd asked for _bright_, she'd even asked for _scary_, as terrible as she'd felt about it,because frightened dragons will look for a leader. But even she hadn't been expecting the jet of fire that shoots up from the direction of the village, blinding as the sun.

_Oh, gods, you two, _Astrid thinks, in the deafening moment of shocked silence before everything explodes around her, _what did you DO?_

But she can't stop to wonder, she doesn't have time – what she has is an entire field full of dragons leaping up with startled screams and alarmed cries, their wings unfolding and their heads rearing back, fangs and eyes flashing, all too visible in that wash of light. What she has is a moment that's flying away from her, that she has only a split second to grasp or it'll be out of her reach forever, and all lost –

Astrid's feet are moving before her mouth is, and somehow she's already in Stormfly's saddle, her hands moving as fast as they ever have to snap her safety straps into place, because this would be a terrible time to fall, even while her mind is still back on that rock, boggling and staring.

"_Mount up!" _she roars to her riders, and _"Get down!"_ to her people, and she'll just have to trust them all to do so, just like they'd talked about. She can only see what's right in front of her, her world narrowing to her hands on Stormfly's saddle grips and her knees and heels tight against Stormfly's fluttering sides, the rattle of her ring of whistles hanging from her belt like a matron's keys, her dragon's surge of frightened power as Stormfly spreads her wings and leaps.

Stormfly erupts into the air in an explosion of wings and bristling spikes and the chaos of dragons doing the same thing all around. All Astrid can do is put her head down as she would in a furious thunderstorm at sea, fighting to keep her footing and her hands on a line knowing that a single misstep meant she'd be swept away and lost, and jam one of her whistles between her teeth.

The sound shrieks out through the frightened mob like a sword blade, sharp and bright and demanding attention, and Astrid signals to them as loud she can. _To me!_ this whistle says. _Come here! Follow me!_

She has to trust Stormfly to navigate this cascade of wings and teeth and claws and spikes and tails and bodies and jaws glowing with the first wisps of fire; she has to shut her eyes and brace herself against a strike she prays isn't coming; she has to keep blowing her whistle and pull Stormfly _up, up_. She can only pray that she's being heard, among the shrieks and screams and wails of frightened, panicked dragons, and that they'll settle into following her once the shock fades a little, because right now, in this moment, it feels like everyone for miles around must be able to hear them.

They'll still have height and darkness going for them, Astrid recalculates frantically. They can afford to lose the cover of silence, if barely, in exchange for the night-blindness of anyone who so much as looks at that blazing inferno in the village –

Gods, if the twins have burnt down the Great Hall, Astrid _will _kill them.

And yet it's exhilarating, too – she'll truly never get over that breathless first moment of flight, when the ground that had always been the only world falls away and everything changes, when she sees everything anew. Her body forgets it's heavy, just for an instant. For that heartbeat, Astrid feels like she could fly all on her own, and longs to float away into the sky and soar.

And as Stormfly cuts through the mob, twisting and dodging and dancing and veering aside from blindly flapping wings, Astrid finds a ferocious, teeth-baring grin on her own face, bitter and bloody and fierce with the satisfaction of _doing _something, of striking a blow against all their enemies, as surely as if she had her axe in her hands.

She has to trust her team, too. She doesn't have time to look back and make sure they're all where they should be. She can't check and be sure that no dragons have collided mid-air, although as far as she's seen, dragons usually don't unless they're trying to. She can only worry about herself and her dragon, right now, and Astrid fights to turn Stormfly onto a steadier course, sweeping up and over Berk, sideways on to the bright beacon everyone should be watching and wondering about.

The knowledge that she can't save everyone at a single stroke is a heavy stone in her gut, unaffected by the breathless joy of their wild flight. But she can give them a chance. She can lead her flock over at least some of the island – and they are following! she sees in an instant's glance back; the air behind her boils with scrambling dragons – and hope at least a few of the wilder ones will come along, slipping in among their tamer friends and staying hidden. She may never know if they do, but she has to try.

Wind howls against her face, making her eyes water, and Astrid narrows her eyes against it, ducking into Stormfly's slipstream as they spiral higher. She looks back, and down, her gaze instinctively seeking out her village, her home…

Even from here, the Great Hall is the biggest shadow in the mess of bridges and houses and stalls and sheepfolds and battle torches and makeshift shelters and carts and semi-organized workspaces that is Berk, unburnt, untouched.

Up in the mountainside, the stone bowl of the arena blazes.

Flames fill the old training arena like a cauldron, howling as the stone chars and cracks, eagerly devouring whatever her pair of firebugs have filled it with; Astrid can only imagine. The dragons once held captive there are long gone, but the hardened wooden cage doors have remained, give or take the odd housebuilder prying out a sturdy log for a roof's center beam. Over the seasons, it's been filled with everything from hay for the sheep to sides of boar stockpiled to be smoked. As one of the few places on Berk where full-size dragons won't go, it's become the go-to place for Vikings to store things they're going to get back to any day now, including Gustav's gang and all the assorted debris any group of teenagers accumulates.

Maybe she can see the ancient stone, hewn straight out of the mountainside, blackening. Maybe she can see the metal of the broken cage doors and the chain-nets warping under the forge-hot heat; Astrid wonders how much of Gobber's stock of coal the twins stole while she kept him distracted with the same old instructions. She'd say they owe her one, but if this works, she'll owe them. Or maybe it doesn't work that way.

Maybe they'll just be a team and call it done.

Surely she can't hear the walls and floor groaning in pain and cracking, fracturing into jagged shards, fire turning stone coated in Monstrous Nightmare saliva to something as weak as spring ice. Maybe she can see a jet of fire blazing out from the ramp entry like flames from the maw of all the dragons once kept captive there, the pit breathing its last in spiteful revenge.

She does see the moment the spectators' seats catch alight, the fire racing across them eagerly, blazing in flares of green and blue and a deep, powerful red from whatever Ruffnut and Tuffnut drenched them in, and that's before the fire finds the sheep bladders full of Zippleback gas – Astrid recognizes the _pop!_ – hidden beneath the wood. It looks like the twins had piled everything on Berk that could burn in there, and a few things that explode, too.

The arena burns like all of Berk that was, put to the pyre.

The smoke can't have reached her yet – she's glanced back for only a moment – but Astrid can taste it. It tastes like the pride and excited fear of her training days in that arena, the throb of her heart in her throat as she ran and jumped and fought and bled and bruised, laced with the smug superiority she'd felt so strongly, watching her cohorts – the same people who have become her mostly-trusted rider team – yell at each other and treat the whole thing like a game. She'd worked _harder_, determined to be the best warrior she could be, knowing she was going to be the chief of Berk someday, resolved to earn it so that no one would ever question her.

That sure hasn't worked out the way she expected.

Maybe there was salt in that fire somewhere, because the air tastes tainted by tears, with the knowledge now that they'd been doing something terrible, even if they didn't know any better. For an instant, the smoke could be the ghosts of all the dragons who'd died there without a chance, under the roar of the mob and the sharp edge of an executioner's blade.

If Astrid has to spend her entire life atoning for that, she'll do so willingly. _Never again._

But there are good memories there too, bright and unmarred. The arena burns, and with it goes her first days of training with Stormfly, learning just as much as she taught. Her first tries at doing something new and impossible, because she believed that it wasn't so impossible after all, and that she'd turn the world upside down if that's what it took to grasp that one chance. Arguing with Fishlegs, around and around, with _the Book says _set against _but look what just happened, the Book is wrong_.

The clean pride, however nervous, of performing with Stormfly under the amazed eyes of her people and Stoick's grim, haunted gaze. The moment she's imagined, even if she wasn't there to see it, when all the chains and cages snapped for good.

Finding new ways to use old ground, however bloodied, however haunted. Chasing children into it to keep them out of the way of their parents, organizing Terror races until the whole world seemed made up of happy, silly little dragons and overexcited kids who wouldn't have to grow up killing them like vermin. Rolling her eyes and struggling not to laugh while Ruffnut and Tuffnut tried to flood it in the middle of winter because they wanted to go ice skating. They'd succeeded, too – they're just terrible ice skaters. Astrid's never admitted how much fun she had watching them.

It's almost too bright to look at, and Astrid squeezes her eyes shut altogether, happy to blame the water that leaks from them on that brightness. In the weird shadows of the afterimages flashing against the backs of her eyelids, she sees the small spots of Vikings running towards it with torches, making a big scene for the entertainment of anyone watching.

Good riddance to it. Let it burn. All Astrid wants of it is the distraction, and the delighted yelling of the twins and their Zippleback as they follow the flock Astrid and Stormfly are leading – she can't _believe_ this is working! – up towards the clouds.

"Sweep over, Stormfly!" she yells, throwing her weight sideways, and feels more than sees Stormfly turn one wing cooperatively and bank across the island, Berk's dragons in their wake.

Her island streaks past beneath them like a dream of falling, the high soar into the clouds and safety still ahead but feeling more achievable with every wingbeat.

Pure chaos, and the single thread of an escape she can pull from it, wheels around her as they race for the blockade and the clouds and the chance of being over and past it before those soldiers realize what they've done. Astrid knows, bitterly, that if they're seen and shot at, they can't afford to turn back for anyone who goes down, but she forces herself not to dwell on that, shoving her focus forward. It's all momentum and surprise and height and luck from here.

But in the moment, all her world is flight and fire and Stormfly's brave heart racing beneath her, and the sharp, bright knowledge of how far she's come. There's how much she wants to save this to hold on to, as tightly as her knuckles popping around her saddle grips.

For all her people who haven't flown yet but could –

For all her people yet to come –

For her hopes of putting her own little apprentice onto a dragon's back one day, and the chance that whatever girl or boy she trains will grow up knowing dragons can be spoken to and listened to, and how much she wants to see that someday –

For her riders flying perimeter, at her left hand and her right and at her back –

For the people depending on her _now_, Viking and dragon alike –

Berk's chief and her dragon fly with Berk's flock following.

* * *

"How many did we lose?" Astrid calls out, somewhat hoarsely, as the sun begins to creep over the horizon. It looks different from up here, scattered out over the heaving sea.

"Not sure!" Snotlout shouts back to her. Fearsome crowds too close to Stormfly and the Nadder bristles at him, snapping her tail-spikes out in warning. Astrid can't blame her. "Didn't see any of 'em get hit. All I could see was fog."

Astrid nods firmly, and has to brace herself on the back of Stormfly's neck while the world spins. "Good," she says anyway. "If you couldn't see anything when you knew they were there, no one on those ships could either."

She glances back over her shoulder now that she can see again – it has been a long, dark, _cold _flight; gods, she loves her cloak – and takes a moment to appreciate the cloud of dragons spread out behind them. Most of them have their wings spread out in a steady, weary glide, except for the Gronkles, who don't really glide so much as flutter. But they're still with her, and that's the important thing.

If they did lose some in the passage over the blockade, which had happened so _fast _for Astrid – they were over the ships' lights far below and then they were gone – then she'll just have to steal them back later. But if she's got fewer than sixty dragons in Stormfly's determinedly even wake, she must be seeing double from how tired she is.

Shame on her. Her messenger Terrors do this flight all the time, running letters back and forth.

Still, there are some things about Stormfly's saddle that Astrid's ready to redesign. Maybe if her luck holds, there will be hot water ready on the boil where they're going, and a cauldron big enough to sit in…

"Swing back to the twins and tell them they did good, will you?" Astrid tosses off to Snotlout before Fearsome can snap at Stormfly again. "Tell them I'm both pleased and terrified. They'll understand." And she fears for their lives if they'd raided Elva's still, the one the woman thinks no one knows about and that, of course, everyone does.

"Gotcha, chief," Snotlout says with a salute that's almost not sarcastic, and ruins it all by sneering, however halfheartedly. He drags Fearsome away with a whoop, and the big Monstrous Nightmare dives and doubles back beneath the ragged flock.

All she has to do is keep this lot together for just a little longer, and where else are they going to go? There isn't anything else out this way, which is one of the reasons Astrid has led them out here. Even if these dragons know the area, the nearest place they can set down is the island she wants them to go to anyway. She's counting on that, and on getting them far enough away that they won't try to wander back on their own.

"Just a little way further," Astrid mutters, to herself as much as to Stormfly, and pats the side of her Nadder's neck as Stormfly rolls an eye back to her and burbles what sounds like encouragement of her own. "That's right, my girl. We're getting there. We're going to stay with some friends of ours for a while, that's all."

With the sun climbing swiftly, and so long flying in darkness behind her, it doesn't seem like long before Astrid spots the dark shadow of a large island on the horizon, taking shape as they fly closer. She recognizes the shape of the low mountainside, not unlike Berk, but with far sheerer faces that make it look impossible to explore. She knows it's an illusion – on the north side, the way no one from the Archipelago would approach, the mountain gives way to a thick ring of forest facing the ocean. It looks no different from any other uninhabited island in the loose expanse of islands the Vikings of the north call theirs, all the way out to the western fog banks.

From the water, it looks threatening and hostile, the high sea cliffs and jagged rocks ringing it promising deep wounds in the side of any ship that tacks near.

From the air, Astrid can see differently.

A clearing in the interior of the island is freckled with low fences penning in curly-horned black and white goats, and with the beginnings of fields, the stumps of felled trees still sharp and raw. Those trees have gone to building the first houses and shelters and lodges that the people who live here now had raised together. Astrid had helped too, with some volunteers from Berk. Some of them are made from the bones of the ships they'd sneaked here, heavily laden with everything they could steal.

Although was it really stealing, if the people taking it were the people it belonged to, no matter what their always-absent, careless, so-called "chief" thought?

No trickles of smoke rise into the sky from the hearths that should be lit by now, and no ring of metal chimes out from the blacksmith's forge, but Astrid isn't worried by that. The forge was built into a cave to be as soundproof as possible, and she'd warned these people herself to stay low, at least until she could get rid of Dagur again.

She doesn't know what the _former _Chief of the Berserkers will do, if he finds where his rebel tribe has run off to, but she knows it won't be good.

As if they all share one mind, Berk's dragons veer towards the island in unison, chattering and shrieking to each other. Maybe they're as ready to set down and find a bed somewhere as Astrid is.

And as they do so, the settlement springs to life. Weapons in hand and helmets hurriedly crammed onto their heads, Vikings race out of their homes and stop, staring, pointing at the cloud of dragons sweeping in from the sky. Geese erupt from beneath their feet and flee to wherever geese hide, honking and squawking.

Astrid's almost sorry for the fear she can so readily imagine, catching in throat after throat. Berk wasn't the only tribe to suffer under dragon raids for hundreds of years, and the Berserkers react the way Berk would have, any day. They brace themselves with their weapons and shields ready to hand, yelling to warn the invaders away and remind themselves that they're not afraid, clustering into groups ready to defend each other, to fight and die for their tribe –

Someone pushes out into the middle of it all, weaving her way through her people with practiced grace. She sets one hand on her hip, next to the folded blades there, and the other over her eyes, shading them from the morning sun making her long, dark plait flash as she stares upward.

She's a slim young woman half a head taller than Astrid, and Astrid isn't ashamed to admit that she's prettier, too. The Chief of Berk – and the new Chief of the renegade Berserkers – don't get things done by being pretty, they _work _for a living. But the curious pale-green eyes, set high in her oval face above a wicked twist to her smile, don't hurt. Her usual outfit of beaten silver-grey armor over sturdy brown leathers is pieced together from many places, but each one has a story, and she can tell it, too, puncturing the objections of anyone who dares to doubt her with a few sharp, well-placed comments.

"_Astrid?"_ Heather shouts.

Despite everything, Astrid can't help but smile back. She has missed her friend _so much_. How had she gone so long without a best friend before, someone who understands her so well, who keeps up with her and laughs with her and works with her to twist the world into something _they _want it to be?

Who else could she trust all her endangered dragons to in good faith, but the girl who makes her heart lighter just to see her?

But there's nothing but fear on Heather's face as her friend stares past her with her pale eyes wide, and Astrid barely has a moment to notice that before Heather screams, _"Look out!"_

And something dark and heavy and jagged barrels out of the sky and hits Stormfly full-on.

Stormfly's screams are like a knife through Astrid's throat, leaving her breathless, or maybe that's the jolt from tumbling from her saddle in midair, her straps stopping her short and hard. Her own harness saves her, leather straps digging into her shoulders and back and waist, and Astrid scrabbles for a grip on something, anything, her flailing hands finding only blue dragon scales and the instantly ripped-away edge of a fast-fluttering wing.

Everything's spinning, and everything hurts, spears of lightning jolting through her head – _something hit me_. Suddenly a maneuver she's practiced a dozen times, walking back up Stormfly's side, is the hardest thing Astrid's ever done.

No. No, it's not. _I've done worse things than this_ – and even as Stormfly spirals, thrashing in the air trying to ward off the heavyset dragon attacking her – _what is that?_ – Astrid gets hold of a saddle grip. She pulls herself towards it like it's the last thing she has to do and then she can rest.

It's not; the instant before she's in the saddle again Stormfly twists sideways to avoid another strike, snapping her tail around and following that spray of sharp spikes with a blast of flame that sends her attacker backwinging, its small, beady eyes almost shut. Astrid manages to get her seat back anyway, and rips her axe from its straps with a yell of defiance.

"Back off!" she yells, not caring if the strange dragon can understand her or not; what matters is that her voice is big and unafraid. All around, her own dragons have sprung away like splashes fleeing a thrown rock, recoiling from the threat, and in that empty space, Astrid finally gets a good look at the _creature_ whose claws have torn into her Stormfly.

It's Gronkle-heavy, but much, much bigger, with none of the essential good nature of a Gronkle's face; its scales, the red of drying blood, are ragged and rough and scarred. Something wraps tightly around its broad shoulders – leather? Is it wearing armor? Is this one of Drago's war dragons? Hadn't they all been set free? – but that's abruptly of less concern than the strong, sharp-tipped tail it carries flexed up and over its back, held ready to strike like a rearing snake, or the crablike claws that snap out from its forelegs, which Astrid chops out at on reflex. Her axe clangs off one, chipping into it, and it springs away with a roar.

If this thing breathes fire, Astrid doesn't want to know about it – "Stormfly!" she cries, less a command than a reminder that her friend isn't alone, and Stormfly blazes at their foe defensively, flaring her wings wide.

The morning sun glances into her eyes, and Astrid lifts her axe not for the blade, but the flat, catching that light and reflecting it back into their attacker's eyes instead, fighting to keep the angle just right as Stormfly tumbles away, favoring her right side and keening as blood drips past Astrid's boot.

A howl over her shoulder gives her an instant's warning before a blue-green Zippleback darts over the heads of dragon and rider alike, one head spewing poisonous gas into the space between them and their attacker. Stormfly drops for a heart-stopping instant, getting out of the way of the blast – _smart girl_, Astrid will tell her when they're safely on the ground – just before the other head opens its mouth and spits sparks past its jutting fangs.

The resulting explosion sends them all careening, but while Berk's flock closes in around Stormfly defensively, their assailant is set upon by five or six dragons – just how many does a Zippleback count as? – who snap and flame it into fleeing, harassed by a howling pack. With its first ambush failed, and its prey fighting back, it races for open air and escape with only a snarl and Stormfly's blood on its claws to its credit.

And that's far too much for Astrid, who'll take her own wergild price out of its hide if she gets a chance.

"You're all right," she tries to soothe her whimpering Nadder, patting reassurances onto Stormfly's neck. "Brave girl, Stormfly – thank you, _thank you_ – I'm so sorry – down, girl, c'mon down, let's go see Heather, yeah?"

Somewhere else, the flock they led here is scattering, some of them fleeing into the distant, untouched parts of the island and others settling down amongst the Berserkers that Heather is clearing away to make room. Distant yelling behind her and higher up must be her dragonriders shouting, demanding to know what just happened, but Astrid doesn't have answers for them. She just doesn't have time to wonder about one aggressive, strange dragon that shouldn't be here – she'd checked this island out herself, with Heather riding pillion behind her, and found no trace of dragons.

It'll have to go on the list.

All she can do is shout back, "Bring 'em down!" and decide to miss the spectacle of her riders trying to direct a flock of dragons like a herd of sheep. Stormfly is faltering in the air, and the pitiful little cry she makes as her claws hit the earth knocks the wind out of Astrid's lungs all over again.

"Good girl," Astrid whispers, leaning over Stormfly's neck and wrapping her arms as far around her friend's neck as they can go. "You did _so good_, my girl. We're all right. We'll be all right. We'll get you patched up, all right? Brave girl, Stormfly."

Actually setting her own feet on solid earth feels like a dream, something that makes so much sense but that she knows is wrong somewhere, and Astrid staggers slightly.

No sooner does she find her footing again but that she's hit all over again.

"Astrid!" Heather cries, catching her up in a full-force hug. Astrid wraps her arms around her friend's waist and lets herself sag into it.

Heather will hold her up for a moment. Heather won't tell anyone. And she smells like fresh-cut wood, which is nice, and just a trace of the familiar oil she puts on her armor and her blade to protect them from the sea air, and a little bit like sweat, not enough to be unpleasant, just enough for Astrid to know her friend is really here.

"Are you all right?" Heather demands, once Astrid's standing up on her own again. She grips Astrid's shoulders like she's refusing to let her go, eying her up and down critically. "Oh – Stormfly! I can't believe – those things have been driving us _crazy_! I don't know where they came from, but they won't go away! They don't seem to want anything, they've just been ambushing anyone they can find and then flying away again. What are you even doing here? I got your message."

Sure enough, they're immediately dive-bombed by two shrieking – and variously blue – Terrible Terrors. The pair of little dragons both try to perch on Astrid's shoulder – the same shoulder, of course, because Terrors really are that terrible – and scold her roundly for not having treats for them.

Heather frees up a hand to wave them off. "Shoo! Shoo! Turquoise, get lost, and take the Noisy Baby with you, can't you see she's busy? No, of course you can't, because you are dumb little brats. You're lucky you're cute. Down! Now!"

Turning back to Astrid, she says, "What's happened?" in a rather gentler tone, and it's all Astrid can do not to slump into her friend's arms and fall asleep on her shoulder, which wouldn't be particularly comfortable anyway, as Heather's wearing those shoulder-guards of hers. The Noisy Baby howls piercingly at Turquoise, and lands on one, her claws scrabbling for a hold.

"Why are there so many dragons?" Heather asks, still in that gentler tone. Somewhere behind her, Astrid can see Fishlegs touch down in the middle of a larger-than-usual Gronkle horde. "This must be every dragon on Berk."

Astrid blurts out, "Gods, I hope so."

Heather blinks at her, looks around again, and says, "Astrid? You want to tell me what's going on? What can I do to help?"

Later last year, just as the summer had turned to autumn, a stranger had turned up on Berk, exhausted and alone and with her head held low. The usual mob of curious Vikings had bundled around her and hustled her up to the village and Stoick, barely shutting up long enough for her to answer any of their nosy questions.

With her eyes cast down, she'd asked Stoick for shelter, saying that she'd come to them because she had nowhere else to go. The small group of families she'd been traveling with had fallen on hard times, and then fallen ill, and left her with no one. She said she'd heard that Berk was doing well, now that the dragon raids had stopped. She'd hoped that they might have a corner somewhere for one more, even if she was just a girl with nothing to bring except a willingness to work.

There was something about her, though. Maybe Astrid's spent long enough watching dragons that she's started to recognize the small signals humans make. _That's not you_, Astrid had recognized instinctively, seeing past the submissive attitude and the bedraggled clothes. And without thinking any further, Astrid had stepped out and said, "Chief? We can take her."

Stoick had grumbled amiably about Astrid adopting even more strays, and handed the girl over to her to figure out.

Green eyes had peeked up at her through a tangle of dark hair, and the girl had said, "Who are you?"

Astrid will _never _get over the shock and the hope on Heather's face when she'd followed up "I'm Astrid," with, "and I'm the next chief of Berk."

Practically overnight, Heather had gone from subdued stray to the best friend Astrid has ever had, full of questions and honesty – as soon as she believed that Astrid wanted to hear it – and praise and a willingness to listen that Astrid had quickly come to prize above even big handfuls of silver. She'd been willing to try when Astrid took her by the hand and introduced her to Stormfly, genuinely amazed when Astrid had greeted her Nadder like a friend and been greeted joyfully in return, and she'd won Astrid's loyalty forever the first time Heather had seen dragon and rider fly together, and immediately said, "That looks _amazing_, can I try?"

As soon as she realized that neither Stoick nor Astrid was going to shout her down for making suggestions, and that she was welcome to shout back if anyone else challenged her, she'd bubbled over with them. Before long, Astrid had discovered how much fun it could be to sit up talking until dawn, bouncing ideas and dreams back and forth over a heap of sleeping Stormfly between her bed and Heather's cot.

They might have stayed like that for years, a two-woman whirlwind turning every handspan of Berk upside down and shaking it to make it run better, if Heather hadn't emptied out her ever-present carry bag on a Great Hall table one night. She'd been searching for some trinket or relic to back up a story she was telling, but one of the things that spilled out was a little drinking horn. The horn had been weathered with time, but it had still been clearly marked with not just Berk's crest, but a variation that meant it had once been Stoick's.

"Where did you get this?" Astrid had asked, turning it over in her hands curiously.

Heather had pulled it away from her and said, "I've _always _had it," cradling it protectively, as if she thought Astrid would snatch it away.

Astrid had asked, "Is that why you came here?" just to buy time while she scrutinized her friend's face anew. Green eyes, different from Hiccup's, but green. Her coloring was all wrong. Surely not. No way –

And she'd been right, as it turned out when the two of them had cornered Stoick privately the next day and asked a couple of very firm questions.

She wasn't Stoick's hidden daughter.

She was Oswald's, sent away as soon as the long-vanished Chief of the Berserkers had gotten himself a son for an heir, because firstborn children could be such an inconvenience if they were the wrong shape and also you were an idiot, or particularly subject to bullying by your own tribal council. But then, he'd been _Dagur's _father, so what could Astrid have expected?

The drinking horn had been a name-day gift from one chief to another, and then sent along as a trade trinket with the no-longer-wanted child when she'd been replaced.

Heather had spent a few days vowing vengeance on a dead man, and finally Astrid had dragged her up to the arena and offered to spar with her until neither of them could see straight and the sun had gone down.

Propped up on each other in the fading darkness, Astrid had huffed out a bitter laugh and said, "Ugh, it just gets worse – you realize you're Dagur's sister, right? Heard of him?"

"Nothing good," Heather had growled.

Astrid had complained about Dagur for a while, the two of them getting their breath back and working out the aches in their shoulders and the ringing in their fingers from misaimed strikes. And somehow she'd ended up at, "He's being a real pain, smashing around the Archipelago. He's not very good at it, mind. I have seen _so much _worse. But what I wouldn't give to bloody his nose proper…"

They'd staggered back down to the village bickering tiredly about something much more important – who got the bath pan first, if Astrid remembers correctly, but it might as well have been about what color their bruises were going to turn – and she'd forgotten all about it.

Who cared who Heather's relatives were? They didn't want her, and Astrid – and Berk – did.

Except.

_Except._

Except a few days later, Astrid had woken up to just enough dawn light to see Heather sitting cross-legged on her cot, elbows planted on her knees and fists under her chin, a thoughtful frown on her face. Not like she'd been sitting up all night worrying, but like something had occurred to her, and she hadn't been able to sleep through it.

"What?" Astrid had said, or something similarly coherent.

"I was thinking," her friend had answered, staring at nothing. "Dagur's the chief of the Berserkers, right? But he's out raiding all the time."

"Yeah?" Astrid's not always very talkative first thing in peacetime's mornings, especially if she's spent the previous evening arguing with Vikings who persistently don't understand that they can't graze their sheep in the last unharvested field of the year, dammit, _people _need to eat that stuff. She usually needs an hour's run for her feet to remind her mouth how to move.

"So who's in charge at home?"

She blames the early hour for how long it had taken her to catch on. "I dunno," she'd muttered. "I guess people are just doing the best they can. Why? What did you have in mind?"

Heather – the _other _Berserker heir, the _sane_ one – had beamed at her like the rising sun and said, "Let's go steal the Berserker tribe."

Astrid had blinked at her for several seconds, and said…well, she doesn't remember exactly what she'd said, but it had been both deeply obscene and utterly delighted.

And that's what they'd done.

Dagur didn't throw the remains of Drago's war fleet at Berk because Astrid laughed at him a few times. Dagur's mad because she and Heather stole his whole basis for being a mighty chief while he wasn't looking.

And _then_, after everyone Heather could persuade that they deserved something better had fled Berserker Island with her in all the ships her new tribe had left (plus a few Astrid had loaned them, claimed as spoils of war from Dagur's failed raids, because she appreciates good irony)…and after they'd made their homes somewhere new and hidden…

_Then_ they'd laughed at him.

But Dagur had thoroughly deserved it, at that point.

Astrid does regret not being there to see Dagur's face when he returned to an all-but-deserted island, with no one to resupply his raiding ships, or to hop when he said "frog" and laughed at the sky, or whatever it is Dagur actually does whenever he's not charging around giving everyone else a headache.

She doesn't regret helping her friend become the chief of her own tribe in her own right, even if Dagur had gone out and found a war fleet to aim at her and everyone else she loves in payback. Not even if she and her best friend are down to the occasional scribbled messages that Turquoise and the Noisy Baby don't eat – it's happened – and quick flyby visits.

Just from those few visits, she can see how much _better _the Berserkers are doing now, and that was worth it. Anyway, Astrid always knew that if she could be a chief, Heather could be too, and she was _so _right.

"Oh, Heather," Astrid says now, sighing deeply. "You would not believe the week I've had."

The easy chuckle her friend offers her is exactly what Astrid needs to hear right now, though the worry on Heather's face says she knows this is serious. Oh yeah, and also Berk's dragons are everywhere, far from home, and Stormfly is whimpering in pain that wrings Astrid's heart as bloody as her dragon's side.

If not for all that, she might just be listening to Astrid complain from beneath her blankets about yet another massively stupid village argument about who left buckets of half-brewed cloth dye out where children, dragons, and sheep could run through them on laundry day. That had been an interesting – and only much later, hilarious – day. "You going to tell me about it?"

"Maybe. You mind me dumping all these dragons on you for a while?"

"Nope," Heather says instantly. "You're always welcome here." She tosses a grin over her shoulder at Fishlegs waving happily at her, and the twins racing over to say hello, and Snotlout still flailing his arms at the exploring dragons like Fearsome crashing to the ground in a heap like a dropped tunic and immediately falling asleep hasn't done more to shift them than anything else.

"I dunno about that lot, though…" she adds, just loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Aw, c'mon! What have _we _done recently?" Tuffnut protests, skidding to a halt. "Hey, this is Heather's island! What'd you end up calling it?"

"Other than burn down the arena, of course," Ruffnut answers her brother's question helpfully.

"You did _what?_"

"Astrid told us to!"

"She really did! You shoulda seen it –"

Heather throws a friendly arm over Astrid's shoulder as the twins babble excitedly, and scratches around Stormfly's eyes as Astrid's wounded, faithful Nadder whimpers to her, and searches the curious crowd of her own people to wave over their healer, whom Astrid knows and who isn't completely terrified of dragons. Silly healers don't last long.

Beyond them all, Berk's dragons range out across an island without the shadows of slave ships ringing them in, and for a moment, Astrid finally feels like they can win this.

* * *

_To be continued._

**Author's Note:** Heather has been extremely patient with me while I worked out how to import her from the TV shows into this series, even if I might have tweaked some details in the process; please welcome her!


	15. Chapter 15

_**Freefall**_**, Part Fifteen**

_Look! _yet another new voice cries, and Toothless turns to look, ear-flaps twitching alertly, searching for one voice among the chattering noise of the dragons swarming all around.

The flock of the secret nest seems determined to show their visitors everything all at once, leading them from ledges to hollows to narrow spires sparkling with their own lights inside. They have seen so many corners of this world that even Hiccup's ability to map any space he finds himself in, drawing shapes in the dark behind his eyes, has begun to fail him. Perhaps it is too bright. Perhaps there is no darkness left to draw in.

Hiccup can only trace the immediate memory of a leap and a glide and a fearless fall with others diving beside them. Soaring past trodden-smooth outcroppings and still-sharp crystals and melted stone, he and Toothless have come down to the bottom of a very wide chasm. There are shadows here, and the stone beneath dragon paws shines in darker shades, all evening purples shot through with dull reds and glowing blacks.

All around the dragon-pair, and Shiver beside them prancing proudly, spires as thick as trees rear up. Their trunks are so broad that dragons could chase each other around their bases and never catch sight of each other's tails, until one or the other believed the game abandoned and stopped running, and was tripped over. The marks of dragon claws rake some of them, fresh and bright. The stone has healed around older scratches, leaving faint lines like shadows beneath the surface.

The stone forest seems to go on forever, a maze as tangled as any forest Hiccup and Toothless have played in and hunted through, and it is out of this labyrinth that the dragon greeting them calls.

_C'mere-please you look!_ he yelps, bounding heavily towards Toothless with his thin tail lashing _eager_, his wide mouth flashing a pale tongue in a dragon's smile. There are some like him in their nest at home, but their noses are golden; this one has a splash of white from the tip of his nose down to the end of his tail, matching his underbelly, unbroken by spines or fins. Even the ruff on the back of his head is blunted. But the rest of him is a cool, familiar sea-blue, as rippling as shallow water on a bright day, and his golden eyes beam _excitement_.

Skidding to a stop, the newcomer crouches _submission _and _respect _very low, head swaying below Toothless'. That he must nearly splay himself out with his belly to the stone does not bother him; there is only _delight _and _anticipation _in his signals. He leaps up to his feet with a puddle of light flaring to life beneath him. _C'mon!_ he cries. _You want you come-see I show you look good good I proud you see!_

Purring _hello you-too you what you fine-then you show?_ Toothless pads after the blue-white dragon. He rolls an eye back _amusement_ to Hiccup, who _whuff_s _don't-know willing-though_; he cannot guess.

Everything here is new, from the spiderweb-tangle of tiny bright threads that turned dark and closed in on itself when Shiver tapped a paw against it and chirped _laughter _at their surprise, to the dragons who scamper and flutter behind the dragon-pair wherever they go, as if their every step was a story to be wondered over.

The blue-white dragon leads them all through the stone trees, glancing over his shoulder and chirping _delight_ every time they are still there, but they do not go far. At the shadowed base of one of the stone spires, he flicks his nose at the mushrooms growing there, like small plants growing at the foot of a great tree, vying for the sun and sheltering from the wind beneath its shade. Some are spread out like vines, reaching and grasping for small holds in the rock to drag themselves up by. Some fan like branches, splayed over more green-black bubbles, seeming to glow with darkness beneath the slow-pulsing purple-blue and vivid green of the climbing vines.

Their guide, puffed up _pride_, tells them that _those_ mushrooms are not-to-eat and breathes a blast of thin, pale flame over them; they crumple and shrivel, leaving steaming, popping ashes and a wave of sharp scent that makes them all sneeze. But with a gesture of _safe-now_, and a yip of _wait stay you please you here… _he races off and returns with a broken-off piece of another mushroom showing on his tongue. _This _mushroom is good to eat, he indicates, and pats it flat very carefully, popping the bubble of it and burying it in the ash.

Seeing the dragon-pair's puzzlement, he yelps _look_ and bounds over to the base of another spire, where there are many good mushrooms growing, alight with a soft new-green light beneath their pale skins. They have climbed all over each other like a rockslide, barely broken where some have been torn away.

_I do_, the blue-white dragon signals, spreading his wings proudly. _These here good-to-eat I do! I clever_, he boasts, preening: a dragon who has thought up a very good trick and seen it work already. _Me me me these I make clever-me food here good good many here-there-there-there_! Hiccup and Toothless follow his gaze to other spires, other nests of good-to-eat mushrooms nestled beneath them, growing in the ashes of bad ones.

_Good me?_

Hiccup whistles a low sound of astonishment and wonder, struggling with this new idea. All his life, he and Toothless have hunted and scavenged to eat. They are expert fishers, in dives and swipes and careful quiet watching; most of their meals come from beneath the water, or beside it.

The dragon-feral has survived on anything he can catch and kill that will not kill him in return. But he and Toothless live in a world that walks the boundaries of survival. Too often, they have missed their pounces or found nothing to chase, their bellies roaring loud enough to scare away anything with ears. They have subsisted day after day on scraps and determination.

The idea of causing food to _be_ – of _telling_ food where to be – has never occurred to them. It is not a thing that dragons do.

_Clever!_ Hiccup cries, chirring _delight_ and whistling _approval_ as Toothless rumbles _amazement, _and Makes Mushrooms' head rears up high with the praise. _This like this yes very-much-so you good clever you!_

Nudging her shoulder against Toothless', Shiver urges him _you try good-to-eat yes you like?_

For a little while, they stop for Toothless to paw loose a few of the mushrooms, and for Hiccup to nip cautiously at a small piece – it does not sting his tongue or freeze his throat.

Ceremoniously, Toothless presents Shiver with a glowing mushroom, and she ripples sky-blue _delight _all over to join them. She settles in a matching-but-smaller curve across from Toothless, but with no _(click)-phuh_ to nestle at her side.

But perhaps she does not need one, Hiccup reasons, watching her against the chaotic, many-layered colors of her nest. Where she cringed before, now she sets her shoulders _triumphant_. Where she lowered her head and hid her eyes, now she boldly stares up and around at those who follow. The colors that sometimes flow across her scales match the glittering, rich-deep hues of this most beautiful of caves, but not as if she is hiding among their riotous shades and stripes and patterns. She simply matches them now.

Shiver must be watching them as much as she is watching out for them, Hiccup believes. But she is happy to; all her signals say so. There is a deep _satisfaction _in her eyes, and if there is more of it for their Toothless-_half _than their Hiccup-_half_…well, most dragons do not understand that they are the same really, and insist on seeing the differences.

_That_ does not matter, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ know, unless those others become cruel with it.

Shiver will have to learn better than others, if Toothless smells good to her.

Beyond Shiver, the stone trees cluster tightly, so that only smaller dragons may wander among them. Their roots are dark, but where they narrow higher up, too many dragons to watch all at once cling and perch and hang, shining eyes turned to the dragon-pair and their companions. They are never truly quiet, the dragons who follow. Hiccup has come to recognize enough that he knows individuals come and go, but the flock remains, and the noise of their cries and yips is as constant as birdsong in spring. Once or twice, he thinks he has spotted Black Patch among or beyond them, but then another dragon has moved, or Hiccup has blinked, and he has been gone.

A flicker of movement nearby catches Hiccup's eye, and he freezes in instinctive caution. There – against that cluster of stone trees, in front of a tangle of golden-orange not-flowers opening flat against the rock like little eyes. Something there is not quite right.

Hiccup stares idly, not watching, hardly looking at all. He lets his gaze drift as if imagining something to make or simply floating on a quiet ocean, watching the clouds and dreaming of flight.

And there – the colors are all where they should be, but there is a shape hidden among them, blurring the edges. There are heart-familiar lines where there should not be.

_See-you!_ Hiccup chirps happily, sitting up and pawing at the air. He drops his jaw in a dragon's grin, and whistles _look-there you there!_

And one Like Them shakes herself roughly, fading into visibility again. Her blue eyes light up _pleased_ even as her few ear-flaps pin back _surprised_, and when Hiccup whistles an excited and cheerful _hello!_ she bounds over to join them.

Her path takes her so close to Shiver, who has leapt to her feet to face the newcomer, that their shoulders nearly collide. The newcomer scrambles to a halt, and the two she-dragons stare at each other, tension coiling through both of them. Shiver bristles, unfolding her wings and baring her teeth just slightly, and her shoulders hunch _I stand!_

For an instant that becomes heartbeats, everything freezes. The distant, constant sound of dripping water seems very loud, when there is no other sound but Shiver's low growl.

In silence, Toothless rises again, watching the two she-dragons carefully. Hiccup leaps to his back without a sound, ready to either flee or leap to Shiver's defense.

But the fight that bares its fangs does not snap into flame; a flurry of color dances over Shiver's scales, just out of view of the dragon-pair, and the newcomer goes around her more widely, her steps very precise.

_Hello you you-both_, the other she-dragon says, crouching deeply to Toothless, who snorts. That is growing _very _tiresome, he signals to Hiccup, _exasperation_. They did not come here to lead; they have a king they bow to themselves.

_You here good you welcome-here good very-much-so like you like amazed pleased you? who you?_

The white dragon raises her head to nose curiously at Hiccup, and he rests a paw on her muzzle gently, his claws curled in. Impulsively, he scratches at her nose in a way that Toothless likes, and her eyes go wide with surprise before flickering half-closed _pleasure_.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, he tells her;_ (click)-phuh_ with a duck of his head _me_, and _tt-th-ss_ with a paw stroked across his dragon-heart's shoulder.

With her head on one side _curious, _the white dragon rears up onto her hind legs, spreading her wings out for balance, to meet Hiccup's eyes and look at him more closely.

As she does, Hiccup looks her over in return. She is a little bit bigger than Shiver, who is pacing around _her _now to stand by Toothless' side, and her face is a shape her own. She has no scar along her chest beneath her foreleg, but she does have a faint pattern of darker, pale-grey scales traced across her chest and belly. They look like veins in a broad leaf, or like little droplets of water running through the sand back to the sea. Those marks darken as Hiccup and Toothless both notice them, and then fade again.

Rivulet drops back to all her paws and waves her tail. _You strange-maybe you good new here here should-be yes-definitely here true safe here good right,_ she says, clicking and chirping and pawing at the ground, her claws leaving thin strips of dark stone among her glowing pawprints. _Small-you big-you fine fine fine happy you-here happy._

Toothless purrs _gratitude_ to her, leaning back and forth to look at her from all sides, and she spins obligingly to be seen.

Shiver snorts, and shrieks out a quick burst of _looking-_sounds that make Hiccup wish he could pin _his _ears back. _Looking_-sounds are almost too high to hear, but just high enough to bite.

Listening to her echoes, Toothless signals _there Hiccup-love-mine look_ instants before _another _dragon Like Them appears from the dark and the colors and the varying textures of the deep stone – oh, they could never have _imagined _such a place as this! A dream barely believed in to meet _one _like them, and now there are so _many!_

This one pads towards them, and Rivulet turns to him chirping happily. She nuzzles her head under his jaw, pressing close against him, and they murmur to each other in soft tones.

Beneath his paws, Hiccup can feel Toothless leaning towards them with carefully restrained interest: those are signals no dragon could mistake for anything but mates together.

Part of Hiccup wants to watch them just as intently, as Rivulet and Hider, who has a faint yellowish tint to his scales, as if he was covered in tiny inside-out tundra flowers, lean into each other and whisper in the private signals they must share. That is a _rightness_ for these dragons, to fit into each other side by side.

Part of him cannot help but fit Toothless and Shiver into their pawprints and find no place left for him, but he is sure of the truth they know in their bones and their souls, that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are two-who-are-one.

Instead, he looks away, and finds Makes Mushrooms crouched forgotten, his wings slumped _dejected_, beside his most clever idea. The heavy-bodied dragon has curled his head back around to rest on his own shoulder, and is watching Toothless out of the corner of one eye.

Hiccup paws at the air _attention_.

_You?_ Makes Mushrooms asks silently.

The dragon-feral paws at the places where this clever dragon has done something that might have saved so many of Hiccup's own flock-mates when winter locked them in to starve, had they only known how to do it. To make food _happen!_ It is magic.

_Amazing_, he postures. _Certain-sure very-much-so best-of-all._

Makes Mushrooms blinks at him, and his tail waves _joy_.

* * *

A half-annoyed cry of _watch out!_ rings across the cavern, and Hiccup looks up to see stars falling from the sky.

No – it cannot be. There are no stars here, only the lights in the hidden crannies of the roof of stone far above, lost in the riot of colors and the sometimes-glowing bodies of the dragons perched on the overhangs and spires of the cave.

The lights swarming down from above do not fall like stones. They move in soaring flutters, as smooth and seamless as a school of fish or a flock of birds that move all together, never striking each other, until the whole cloud of them looks like a single being, breathing and shifting.

As bright as little suns, the lights flicker and glide, like a great storm of flowers falling from high above, scattered by the wind.

Hiccup cries out _amazement,_ and Toothless' upturned eyes brighten as he, too, sees them for what they are.

The tiniest dragons they have ever seen swarm into the clearing among the stone trees, as light as butterflies. Soundless except for the beating of their wings, which whisper and hiss all together, they perch on tiny stones and alight on mushrooms without crushing them, clustering in the glowing pawprints of dragons, hanging from ledges too small to see, and landing on every dragon they can find.

Many of them settle across Toothless' wings, and two of them on his nose so that he must look cross-eyed to see them, tongue lolling _laughter_. More land on Shiver, and her scales flicker a dull green _resignation_ – Hiccup knows, because her sigh matches. Above and all around, bigger dragons blow them away with gentle huffs, or scramble aside, or allow the fire-bright little ones to land, as it suits them.

One alights on Hiccup's shoulder, and he feels the warmth of it against his throat and face like a flame, not hot enough to burn.

Curious, the dragon-feral reaches up a paw, offering a perch, and almost at once, a little dragon settles there.

Very carefully, Hiccup draws it back towards him, inspecting it gently. There is barely any weight to it; he could be holding only a pinecone. Its flesh glows with its fires, straight through its colorless scales, as clear as water; he can see every bone in its webbed wings. When it folds those wings back and nuzzles its angular face against his paw, rolling over onto its back, it carries a piece of sun in its belly and chest.

He has seen other small dragons that glowed with their fires inside, but those are far away, safe in a cave like a honey-rich hive of their own with their queen-mother. These wisps are smaller still, and far more fragile.

_You small,_ Hiccup tells it, blinking _hello_ and chirruping _like-you!_ at it. Shifting unconsciously as Toothless moves to shake off some of the wisps licking him, he tugs off his other gauntlet and brushes a soft-claw delicately along the wisp's lines, petting it like a bubble that might pop.

It does not purr, but its fires flicker out to all its ends, wings and tiny-clawed paws and divided tail-tip. The little shred of fire winds itself around his bare paw and licks at his skin in little touches of flame, nuzzling its head against a single soft-claw. Hiccup can feel it buzzing; perhaps wisps cannot make any sounds at all.

A dragon's cry of alarm – _what you that distress bad hurt? hurt? not-like what? worry flock-mate hurt!_ – makes both black dragon and dragon-feral jump, and Hiccup looks over to find Rivulet reared up and staring at him, her scales flashing red-orange _shock._

Her blue eyes are fixed on Hiccup's bare paw, light skin replacing black scales and claws, and she yelps _hurt? hurt?_ again. Hider comes up beside her with his signals reflecting _anxious_, and yips _surprise_.

At once, Hiccup realizes that to her, it must look like his paw has fallen off, or that he has shed many scales before they were ready, leaving the new skin beneath raw and painful. Younger dragons especially will worry away shedding scales, scratching fiercely, impatient to have them gone; Hiccup has fallen and scraped away his own softer skin too many times to remember, leaving flesh that was not ready to be skin yet.

_No no-hurt fine this me fine you calm come look_, he gestures, grunting _reassurance _past the gauntlet held in his teeth. Hiccup scrambles down from Toothless' back, moving the wisp he holds to his shoulder with its flock-mate, and shows Rivulet his bare paw. _See?_

Beside him, Toothless signals _uncertainty_, and Hiccup glances back _fearless_ to him, eyes bright. He knows what his dragon-self is warning him about; bury it as he might, he lives with the knowledge of what his clever paws really are more acutely than anyone.

He cannot change that they are human paws, but he does not have to care.

No one here has balked at him, or looked at him with anything more than curiosity for being small and riding on Toothless' shoulders – already he has seen dragons Like Them trying to scramble onto the backs of bigger ones, and glimpses of some of the arguments that result.

Shiver had no warning-sound for _human_, and she did not know to avoid them. No flock would let one of its own grow up without warning them of such a threat, so as baffling as it seems, Hiccup has reasoned that this _entire flock_ must know nothing of humans. How could they, hidden so well?

So once again, he can show off his clever paws with pride.

_See?_ he asks Rivulet, as Shiver raises her head and looks smug to know this already. He tugs off his other gauntlet and shows her and the dragons crowding closer above all the ways his paws can move, picking things up and holding wisps gently. His soft-claws can move one and not the others, or shut tight. Hiccup pulls a wound-tight bit of cord from their flying-with to tie a knot in it, making a loop. He tugs his gauntlets back on and shows them claws, and removes them again to snap off a thin feather of stone, which he dips in the nearest puddle of damp mushroom ashes.

_You-watch!_ he signals, and draws a long, dark line across the glowing stone.

With quick, sure strokes, he sketches out Toothless, smudging more ashes into the lines under the amazed eyes of all their watchers. _This him Toothless-beloved you see? yes? look look!_

Beside the image of Toothless, he draws a smaller one, her lines thinner, without spine-fins, and fewer ear-flaps framing her face. This one, he leaves all pale inside.

_Her,_ he gestures, _this-here._ Hiccup glances around quickly, regretting that he has no chalk in one of his many hidden pockets, and that the good-to-eat mushrooms did not look like they would smear. He has always wanted paints that glow with their own light, although he thinks he can see small sparks in the ashes as he leans over them. They are gone whenever he looks for them, though.

_Me! that me!_ Shiver cries out, eyes wide and pleased. She purrs like thunder, and colors rainbow across her scales wildly. _Me me me me me me me_.

With Toothless at his back, and an audience of fascinated dragons creeping down the pillars, treading lightly among the wisps, Hiccup draws some of the dragons they have met already, though he cannot remember them _all_. As soon as they left the dark island, creeping back through the tunnel under the lake, the flock had broken over them like a storm and swept them away, with nothing to do but swim. He draws that lake, smudging and grumbling over the shadows, longing for color, but their watchers cry out in delight and recognition anyway, jostling each other to recognize the faces scattered across the stone.

He draws the high waterfall they dived down, and the ledge that hid the tunnel.

_There we go we fly here-now yes that go_, Toothless explains, which Hiccup only knows because he sees Toothless' paw swiping at the drawing out of the side of his eye; his attention is on the story sprawling out across the stone. So he does not see Shiver's colors flickering in mismatched, clashing shades that suggest _unease_, nor does he see the dragons closest enough to watch pulling away, just a couple of steps with their muzzles drawn back.

He draws the raging ocean, waves churned up high and hurling themselves against the stone. Can there be storms here, without a sky? _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _have flown in so many, because they must, or for fun. He draws Toothless flying, and himself by his dragon-self's side, and the horizon seen from a cave-nest on an island they were trapped on once, waiting to fly free again.

Something tugs at the corner of his attention, as he works on the open cave-mouth with the sky beyond. Something about _Buh-rrrrrrKK_ he had thought of before, but he has no time for it now. It will wait until he remembers it.

Ignoring the pestering thought, he shades in the rocks at the lip of the cave where they stayed awhile. With a new stick that might be a half-charred branchlike mushroom that Makes Mushrooms has brought him, he sketches in small-cousins flying outside in the open air.

He draws their home-nest from the outside, all bristling ice spikes and jagged rock, and the barren, icy sand and stone of the shore. Their flock-mates play there sometimes, so he draws in many small dragons. He draws the moon rising beyond, and shadows in the sky that start as clouds, but when he traces a soft-claw across the stone beneath, it lights up red-gold and vivid green, the flowing colors of winter sky-fires.

_Nest that there us ours home-nest we there us home-nest together safe good,_ Toothless says, a thread of _irritation _and _disappointment_ in his voice that Hiccup barely notices; he is drawing their nest within. Here are the cliffs and spires that surround the king's lake, the meadows beyond, the dark mouths of tunnels opening onto far falls and steep slides, bright under the sun.

In ashes and memory and stone, by the light of the wisps perching warm on his back and clinging to his fur, and the colors that flare to life in the stone as he touches it, Hiccup shows their world.

But when he looks up, it is to see a stone forest almost deserted, except for himself and Toothless and Shiver. Makes Mushrooms still watches them, almost hidden behind a grove of multicolored growths all tangled together, like a thicket of bushes. The wisps still float through the cavern on little flights of their own, playing with each other and snuggled into small nests. But the chattering, rapt-staring flock seems to have lost interest and gone away. Only a few remain, Hider and Rivulet among them, but they are quieter now.

Somewhere in the distance, Hiccup hears a harsh, spiteful squawk he does not like.

_They go?_ Toothless asks Shiver, who crouches slightly, her scales dulling grey.

_Don't-know_, she answers, but Hiccup, watching her closely, does not believe her.

Still, it does not matter, the dragon-pair shrug to each other as Hiccup claps ashes from his paws. They smell sharp.

There is much more of this nest still to see, and many more dragons to meet, if those dragons want to meet them. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are happy to do so without trailing so many others behind them like a parade of hatchlings making all the noise they can, or without being groveled to whenever Toothless looks at them.

This is not their home, after all, and these dragons are not their family.

* * *

Breathless and weary, Hiccup splashes his forepaws into the shallows of the fishing lake and drinks thirstily. The water has a strange taste to it, thick with stone and sparking on his tongue, laced with a dark stillness washed up from deeper caverns and the faint, distant salt-sting of the sea. But there is only a tinge of salt, and all around him, other dragons are drinking too, keeping to the shallows.

Toothless paws at the water idly, as he might to bait a fish. His sides heave with exhaustion from much precise flying here and there, spinning around suddenly to race elsewhere after a new cry of _c'mon!_ and with the rush of excitement that has driven them both onward, chasing wonder after wonder.

They must not be strangers anymore, because the dragons here have called the dragon-pair happily to see them fly in tight, fast swerves around narrow biting-down stone fangs, their scales catching the cascading colors in the rock and glowing brightly to light up shadowed places. Dancing _anticipation_, shifting across all his paws, Toothless had raced to join them, and the dragon-pair had darted among them like a single starling in a flock of bright birds.

One dragon had taken them to see a very great pile of glowing crystals, clawed from the stone – _not-me, _Crystal Cache had denied, crooning _long-ago _– and hoarded carefully. Almost at once, another dragon, his scales jagged with wild orange-and-blue stripes, had dived in with his claws outstretched. He had spotted Hiccup and Toothless far too late to stop, but he had tried, and the resulting startled crash had knocked all the crystals flying, not just the one from the very bottom of the pile that he had tried to snatch.

Howling _outrage_ and color-flashing grey-green _shame_, Crystal Cache had leapt upon the thief, and as they brawled, many other dragons had descended on the hoard, fleeing with their thefts in their jaws and paws, _laughter _at the great trick in their bodies.

Hiccup will give the one _he _took back to her eventually, but it is too lovely a shade of reddish purple to return just yet.

A dragon Like Them led them to a very deep chasm, falling away into darkness from the back of a cavern, much more like the caves Hiccup and Toothless have always known. In color and yelps, and with a powerful stink that made them immediately want to turn away and go elsewhere, he had warned them _not-there no-go bad there there no you know! Certain-sure no-never down-there no!_ Mixed into his sounds had been a signal they did not recognize – they are learning, but all dragons signal differently – but it had sounded very important.

Shiver, accompanying them, had tipped her head on one side and eyed them _doubt_. She and Do Not Go had flown with them to a different cave, half-flooded, and told a story in gesture and posture about heads being underwater, and distress, and gasping for air when they lifted their heads dripping again –

And Hiccup and Toothless had understood that new sound to mean _bad air_, and promised to avoid it, remembering other ventures into caves uninhabited by anything but small spiders. Neither of them like spiders, but they like less when passages that started well narrow into shut-tight jaws. They know that panic can kill as surely as the teeth of Dark Things, in a strange cave.

Other dragons have invited them to see good nests that those who live here have made and defended fiercely, that they are proud to have as theirs. They have watched as fledglings not quite full-grown climb upside-down across the rough stone ceiling, tapping little stars into life as they go, racing each other to go furthest before they fall.

And again and again, dragons have flown and bounded around them seemingly just to see the strangers who have come here, to greet them boldly or shyly or wildly, and always with that submissive crouch.

Now, Shiver steps lightly into the shallows and hesitates for only a heartbeat before resting her jaw across Toothless' shoulders with a sigh of her own as the chilly water laps over her paws. Wherever they have flown, she has flown with them, and Hiccup can understand that she must be as tired as they are.

Still, that is _his_ place to be.

Before he can warn her off, though, yet another dragon cries _c'mon!_ and Shiver steps away as Toothless turns to look. The dragon on the shore is pale red with faded golden rings scattered across her scales, and small nubs that might have once been thorny spikes running down her spine. Her long neck melts into her body without stopping for shoulders, her folded, grey-tipped wings the broadest thing about her. She would be long and low-slung if she ran, but sitting up with her short forepaws held before her, her tail seems too long for her body. She was fishing before, hovering low and holding fire in her jaws to lure fish. Hiccup had noticed her only in a glance.

Her eyes are all _invitation_, though, and her flock-mates step away from her politely. _Me want yes you c'mon you-both you I show good like you like!_

Shiver smacks her tail-fins against the water with a sharp _slap!_ and Sunset Cloud rolls her small golden eyes. _You-too,_ she adds gracelessly, her small signals showing quickly suppressed _disdain._

Toothless glances sideways at Hiccup. _You want?_ he asks. _Tired you-beloved me-too exasperation up down there-there-there all-over run run run disbelief want you go? here-maybe stay rest easy-then can-do not-need her go follow you want?_

Does this flock expect them to see every corner of this place in a single day, if a single day it has been? Without the sun, there is only hunger and tiredness to guide them.

_This-she go us yes now_, Hiccup offers as a compromise, willing to see just one more thing. _No-more._

Blinking _teasing _at his partner-self – _you careful you?_ – Toothless dips one shoulder to him, and Hiccup leaps to his back; a moment later they and Shiver are in the air and following Sunset Cloud.

Behind them, they leave the dark island in the middle of the lake, still quietly abandoned. The water of the lake surges slightly, a fresh rush of fish and the waving tendrils of squid washed out of the tunnels into the lake with the current. And all around, dragons soar, their scales lit with their own fires and the colors of their secret nest.

If there are more dragons hovering lazily and perching warily, all in the direction of the way they came into this nest, the way out, Hiccup thinks nothing of it for now; he is tired.

To fly in a cave far underground is different from flight in the open sky, Hiccup is learning, attentive to the way Toothless moves. There are no fierce winds to knock them from their path and send them spinning, but there are many more obstacles – to fly too recklessly and too high is to invite a crash. Toothless chirps small _looking-_sounds at anything that might be in his way; a thing that looks very small and far away may be bigger and closer than they think. Hiccup is at home in caves, but even he finds it strange to have a limit to how far up they can go. They will _never _catch the moon from in here.

Sunset Cloud leads them through a bright tangle of tunnels, swerving and diving, and over a deep crevasse that recedes into darkness. Perhaps there are no dragons there to wake the lights in the stone, or perhaps it is stone that does not glow, and perhaps the dragon-pair will go and find out another time; now, it is behind them and gone. With her rings flaring gold, the red dragon swoops up the side of a sheer cliff, bare of ledges and flowed over by water to smooth away all the grips for small paws. Even Hiccup, who is a very good climber indeed, would struggle. But he does not need to; he is with Toothless where he belongs.

Following Sunset Cloud into a tunnel in the cliff face, Toothless must immediately dive to follow her down the drop-off beyond; it is a very sharp up-and-down. He sets down beside her, and Shiver lands a moment later, hanging back _uncertain_, doubting her welcome. Swirling colors track them all through the stone.

The passage leads into a broad, bright cavern with joined-together stone teeth scattered through it, rich with many shapes and colors of mushrooms, but that is not the surprise that stops Toothless short and snaps Hiccup's shoulders tight.

They _cannot _be here! They must not be!

Many small pits have been trodden carefully into the rock, formed by the shapes of many dragons' bodies resting there, over and over again. One of them is lit brightly, the two-heads cousin/s nesting there raising both short-horned heads with anxious growls at the newcomers and intruders: they have a most precious thing to guard. In the flickering sage-green light of the stone, Hiccup can see that the doubled dragon is curled around a single unhatched egg.

This is a place for nesting mothers, and for hatchlings – a rangy little red dragonet, scampering across the cave yelling _hungry!_ can only belong to Sunset Cloud – and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ should not be here! They would never allow a stranger to their nest anywhere near their flock's eggs. They would growl and snarl and drive any such trespasser away with fire and screaming. Instinct stronger than thought holds Toothless frozen where he is, unwilling to go further.

And yet Sunset Cloud paws _c'mon! _at them once more, sagging _disappointment _when they do not at once follow. She nudges her nose against her hatchling, knocking him tumbling and yelling raucously. The baby bounces back up on his paws at once and takes off into the air in an unstable flutter that lasts only a few wingbeats before he must crash sprawling to the flaring ground again. That he has twisted his own tail around one hindleg seems to puzzle him, and his attempts to rise again only knock him over once more.

As the hatchling rolls over and growls at his tail, Hiccup and Toothless fret to each other in tiny gestures and mewling sounds. They were _invited_ here, but how can they – do they dare – should they?

Finally, at Shiver's urging, they resolve to try, but it is with great reluctance that Toothless steps into the nursery cave, slinking widely around the wary-eyed two-heads cousin. Both heads look uncertain whether they should crouch to him or snarl, but Toothless pretends they do not exist, which calms them all. Still, the dragon-pair signal _gentle _and _no-threat _profoundly, low and careful, ready to flee if challenged.

But only the little red hatchling charges up to them, screaming happily at the sight of new dragons to play with. Except for Black Patch, he is the first dragon they have met here who does not crouch to them, and with a _hough_ing laugh, Hiccup slips down to the stone, sitting back on his heels.

The hatchling throws himself at the dragon-feral cheerfully, digging his still-blunt claws into Hiccup's side and climbing over him like a squirrel up a tree. Hauling himself over Hiccup's shoulder and gripping onto his fur for support, he chatters _excitement_ at Toothless, turning his open mouth up _feed me!_

With his tongue lolling _laughter_, Toothless croaks _no-food_ in answer, flicking his nose at Sunset Cloud. _She you mother you go her!_

The hatchling squalls _disappointment_, scolding the black dragon and informing them all very loudly that he is _hungry hungry hungry – what this?_ the hatchling coos, noticing his pawful of fur for the first time. _This this this what this this soft like!_

_Mine,_ Hiccup snorts at him, and _ouch!_ when he pulls too hard, trying to shove the dragon-feral's much-matted shock of fur into his mouth as something maybe to eat. It is not the first time Hiccup has had babies try to chew on him, and he shrugs the little dragon off in a well-practiced movement, catching him in both paws before he can fall far. _I big_, he says sternly, setting the baby down and looming over him, catching up one wing and spreading it out just slightly. _No bite!_

Unintimidated, the hatchling rears up on his hind legs just as his mother had, and sticks his nose into Hiccup's, head tilting side-to-side. The baby thinks for a moment, humming to himself, and snaps his jaws harmlessly. _Bite!_

_No bite!_ Hiccup repeats, tapping him lightly on the nose, and the hatchling shakes all over with laughter that topples him over. Squirming on his back, he catches sight of his mother again, flips himself right-way-up, and races back to her howling _hungry hungry hungry_, the dragon-feral forgotten and Toothless and Shiver all but ignored.

Sunset Cloud's sides heave as she coughs up fish scraps and mushroom slurry for her hatchling, and Hiccup and Toothless and Shiver all turn to leave.

They are halfway across the cavern when a soft voice calls out _wait!_ to them.

Peeking out from behind one of the stone teeth, a she-dragon Like Them stares anxiously, the edges of her blurred and faded as if she had been hiding, and decided to show herself only now. She paws at the ground _nervous_, _conflict_ clear in her body, and she glances between black dragon and dragon-feral with her eyes lowered, reluctant to meet their eyes.

_You – _she says, and hesitates. _You want? you see? uncertain reluctant protect stay-away you-though you good you Alpha you?_

Toothless snorts _denial_, biting back his growl._ Safe-though you no scared!_

Hiccup is too focused on Shy-She to notice Shiver bare the edges of her teeth and shudder _frustration_ with Toothless' answer.

Shy-She is Like Them, and she is here among nests for hatchlings, and they were brought here to meet a hatchling, and – no, it is not possible, they have never even _dreamed_ of such a thing –

_No-threat_, Toothless repeats, crouching to the stone and lowering his head, even as he glances at Hiccup with his eyes wide – they have thought the same impossible way. _You say,_ he promises.

Shy-She hesitates a moment longer, and then blurts out _you come!_ She retreats step by step, watching Toothless as he pads towards her, making himself as small as he can. Hiccup follows him around the stone tooth, and beyond –

There is a nest-pit here too, the stone covered in ashes trodden down hard. And curled up very small against one side of it, there is a little scrap of white scales, raising her head as her mother steps back into the nest and nuzzles her. Her cry is the smallest of sounds, and yet Toothless stops mid-step, caught by it as surely as any biting trap with wicked teeth.

They have met a trap they cannot break; it has them both forever.

Tentatively, Shy-She invites Toothless to come and meet her littlest one, but her eyes on Hiccup and Shiver are less certain. Perhaps Hiccup seems closer to a blundering hatchling, being small; perhaps he simply looks or moves too differently.

The dragon-feral drops to the stone, unbothered, and signals _acceptance_. Shy-She is a nesting mother, and nesting mothers are _always_ right, even when they take offense without cause. Hiccup will not move without permission, however deeply he may envy his Toothless-half.

The black dragon, trembling with _wonder _greater than anything else they have seen today, lowers his nose to a baby just his shape, if winter-white and so much smaller. Everything about him signals _awe._

_Sad, _a soft whine says, and Shiver slumps to the ground beside Hiccup. Her ear-flaps flick low, and she mewls _longing _without _hope._

_Why-sad?_ Hiccup asks her. Cautiously, he shifts to lean his shoulder against her own, stroking the back of his claws against her face.

_Me here not-wanted not-welcome me go-away she say that-one that-one always,_ the white dragon explains, leaning against his paw with a whimper of _rejected_.

_Us you like-you you welcome_, Hiccup offers. He likes her, and he would be happy to have her fly beside them as a friend and a flock-mate, but that she is a shape Like Them, and that Toothless yearns towards her scent, complicates everything. He holds no grudge against her for misunderstanding him before; she has admitted her wrongness and apologized, and said nothing about her mistake since. If only he could show her the absolute truth of what he and Toothless are, that they are two-who-are-one and that she cannot court one without including the other! But it is not something easy to say in signals. It must be watched and trusted and accepted.

He wonders if the nesting two-heads cousin would understand; he and Toothless are a bit like that, although they are one self with two bodies, not one body with two selves.

Shiver peeks at him. _Me you like? unsure._

Daringly, Hiccup tugs at one of her ear-flaps. _Yes._

Her tail waves a little, and she smiles slightly, _relief _in the eye he can see and a flicker of that sky-blue she favors for _happiness_ blooming across half of her face, and nowhere else.

_Hiccup-beloved!_ Toothless clicks at him, and Hiccup's head snaps around instantly. His dragon-heart paws at him, trembling with _exhilaration _and begging _c'mon good good good c'mon disbelief wonder love-you here best-of-all c'mon!_

Beside him, Shy-She invites _you too_.

The dragon-feral scrambles to his paws, and stops. _Her?_ he asks Shy-She, glancing to Shiver. _Want._

Shy-She pauses, _surprise _flowing over her body, but she shrugs _fine-then_.

Hiccup's claws click against the stone, and he stops on the edge of the nest, showing Shy-She that his claws can be removed, and that the paws beneath are gentle; they cannot harm her hatchling. She flicks her ear-flaps back _surprise_ again, but does not chase him away, nor the white dragon padding behind him, whom Hiccup barely notices: his eyes are all for the little one dozing between Toothless' forepaws.

With a trembling paw, Hiccup reaches out to touch her, barely daring to. Only the knowledge that he cannot bear _not_ to closes the last gap between his skin and her white scales.

Oh, she is so _soft!_ Not with the fur of a small prey-beast, but her scales have never been touched by rain or wind, or even by cold; she has never been pushed yelping against rough stone. She seems as fragile as a wisp, and Hiccup runs a paw over her little head, brushing against ear-flaps smaller than his smallest blunt claw, and down her reed-thin back. When he rests his palm against her side, careful of her tiny, unfledged wings, he can feel her heartbeat sure and strong, and her fires warm against his skin. They are only a shade of what they will be, someday, but a dragon's fires are her soul, and she burns.

She is awkward and tiny and helpless, her head too large for her body and her paws seeming big enough for two of her. His paw covers her side entirely, out to the tiny fins at the base of her tail. She must be very new, to be so small; if he searched among the ashes, perhaps he would find pieces of her shell, their edges still sharp and raw.

Seeing her eyes move beneath her translucent eyelids sets off a flood of instincts so strong, Hiccup nearly staggers beneath them, knowing he will never surface. He would die to protect this little one Like Them as surely as he would die to protect his Toothless-self; they would both fight to a bloody death to buy her time to flee, their fangs fixed so deeply in their enemy's throat that even in death they would never let go. For this little one Like Them, everything in their power and more; for this little one, all the world.

Hiccup turns his face up to his Toothless-half with no idea what his signals are saying, only that he has – that they have, he sees at once – never felt anything this joyful, or this strong, except maybe seeing that ones Like Them exist at all.

Toothless understands, and the dragon-pair meet each other's eyes with perfect wonder.

Movement beside them is only Shiver, stepping very lightly so as not to wake the little one with her head resting against Toothless' paw; he would be very happy never to move again. She breathes over the little one like the gentlest spring breeze promising warmth, stretching the very tip of her tongue out to lap over the hatchling's forehead, and when no one drives her away, she mewls _disbelief_.

She turns her eyes up to Toothless standing guard, wondering over the little scrap of white scales sleeping between his paws, and her eyes go soft. A little bit at a time, she lowers herself to the ashes of the nest, and reaches over Toothless' paw to brush the side of hers against the little one's other side.

With the little attention he can spare, Hiccup notices _recognition _in her signals, and a faint, muted _sadness_, almost _pity_, as she looks at the pure-white hatchling. He remembers the story she told them, and that she had called herself _bad _for not having patches or markings.

As if that mattered at all. As if Shiver were not bolder than all down here, hidden and safe. As if this little one were not perfect as she is, and as the dragon she could one day become, and as all the awkward, silly, reckless little dragons she could be in between.

They are kin; _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ care for nothing else.

_You like? _Shy-She chirps, incredulous and soft, and Hiccup and Toothless whistle _yes!_ as loudly and firmly as they can, in unison, while at the same time staying very quiet. From a lifetime spent watching over their flock's hatchlings, and joining them in their games, they know that a sleeping baby is a rare treasure indeed.

How Shy-She could think otherwise is a mystery to Hiccup, but their agreement clearly pleases her. Her eyes brighten, and a strong scent that makes the dragon-feral think of exhilarated flight mixes into the nest's scents of dragons and ashes and hatchling.

Any exhaustion is long forgotten, the tumult of the day set aside. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have had dragons crouching _Alpha _to them at every turn, even though they have done nothing except look a bit like Alphas long gone, but they would crawl on their bellies before this little one without hesitation. Let her wake, and let her demand the moon, and they will fly to get it for her.

Toothless bows his head and licks _gratitude_ across Shiver's forehead, purring _satisfaction _and _peace_. That she has brought them here, to a nest with others Like Them, and with a hatchling they never even imagined, as perfect and pale as that moon, when they had done no more than their purpose in setting Shiver-friend free –

It is a debt they can never repay, and a gift they will treasure all their lives. They will curl around the memory and warm themselves by it in even the fiercest winters. Hiccup will draw her, and this little one, on the walls of their nest just for them back home, and when they are hurt or sulking over some mischief or grieving a lost flock-mate, they will look at it and remember this moment always.

Nestled among them all, the little one yawns. She turns her face up, and blinks blearily at the white dragon staring down raptly at her, and the black dragon, and the patchwork dragon-feral, none of which she has ever seen before.

Knowing herself safe, the little one stretches, rolls onto her back, fits one paw into her mouth, and goes back to sleep.

* * *

Perhaps days have passed; Toothless cannot tell.

He has learned many of the caves and passages and crevasses of this place, where it is good to perch and watch. He recognizes most of the dragons he sees. He has fallen into a lake he did not mean to, when the flooded stone disappeared beneath his unwary step. He has found rocks that chime when they are touched; he and Hiccup and Shiver danced through that cave to make a jangling-bright melody that fell all over itself and laughed. He has claimed a sleeping-nest for them both in a place where they can see the dark island in the middle of the big lake and the way out.

With Hiccup asleep beside him, Toothless dozes easily, his nose against his tail. Days of sun and moonlight are only a memory; they are tired, so they sleep. Through one half-opened eye, Toothless can see that many other dragons are sleeping, too, so the cavern is darker now. All the stones that glow are hidden beneath the curled-up bodies of dragons. Only a little light escapes to catch the point of a nose or the curl of a tail, or the swell of a breathing side.

Far above, the crystals hidden among the stone ceiling shine, but they are no stars that Toothless recognizes. Where are they telling him to go?

_Toothless?_ a familiar voice asks, _tt-th-ss?_ and the black dragon opens his other eye as well.

He is not surprised to see Shiver there, one paw outstretched to wake him. Her signals say only _curiosity_, without _distress_, so there is nothing urgent here.

Toothless flips his tail at her idly, with a yawn. _You sleep yes tired-too c'mere you where nest you not-mind you here fine you-want?_

She purrs _gratitude_ for the invitation – he would not mind at all to have her sleep beside them – but her ear-flaps go down _discontented._

_Lonely-me,_ she whines._ They sleep all sleep tired fine bored-though me you c'mon? come play? They not-sure me don't-know not-want me play you-though you come? Lonely._

This, Toothless believes. However eager she was to return to her nest of glowing crystals and deep caverns, she is not loved here. She is an afterthought to every invitation offered to the dragon-pair, though she always follows. Not long ago, they went to drop rocks into the river that plunged down a shaft too narrow and dark to fly down. Pushing rocks from edges to see them fall is a game all dragons love. But a she-dragon Like Them with blue-green eyes had tried to push Shiver away, just like a stone.

Pushy Eyes had howled _shock _and _outrage _when Shiver shouldered past her with a snarl, slinking to crouch beneath Toothless' side – there is no sun here to cast shadows – while Hiccup scolded the other she-dragon in whistles and _quork_s and pawing at the air. The two she-dragons had growled at each other often, clawing stones loose as if it were not stones they wished to claw.

He would gladly go and play with her, but the warmth of Hiccup's smaller body against his ribs is a weight holding Toothless to the ground, and one he is content to have there. _Hiccup-mine, _Toothless indicates, raising his outstretched wing slightly to show his partner-self asleep. _I stay we us together-always safe yes content guard warm safe sleep good together sleep protect._

Shiver sighs _understanding_, and Toothless is pleased.

_Safe here though safe-always_, she argues anyway, waving a wing _dismissal_. _Him good very-much-so like they-all him like sleep good safe he – _she ripples darkness over her body, all but her head and her forepaws, with only the slightest cringe _jealousy_ – _fine-important he safe here sure!_

Her scales fade back to her own true-white, and Shiver cringes _please? lonely._

Toothless has no reason to doubt her. He and Hiccup have been accepted here entirely, welcomed and wanted and folded into the doings of the flock with joy, if with rather more deference than Toothless is accustomed to. It is still strange, to be crouched to as if he were an Alpha. But he does not believe that any dragon here would bother Hiccup, and the cave is warm enough with so many sleeping dragons nearby, and Shiver is only asking him to play awhile…

_Fine-then I come_, Toothless relents, and very carefully eases away without waking his Hiccup-_love_. He might only be going to drink from the lake, or to one of the places where mess goes to be washed away by the tide. He will surely be back before Hiccup wakes again, but Toothless nuzzles against his beloved-self anyway, breathing _reassurance _and _love-you-always_ in a low hum to purr through his dreams.

Shaking himself, he spreads out his wings and looks inquisitively at Shiver. _We go yes where?_

The white dragon lights up in golds, and flashes her tongue in a smile. _C'mon!_ And she leaps aloft in a flutter of wings that all but begs for Toothless to follow.

At once, he is in the air after her, leaping high in a great spring and a powerful downbeat, even if he must leap a little short – the ceiling above is jagged and sharp. Hiccup will be very cross if he tears his wings against those sharp stones.

Shiver settles out into a long glide, casual and easy, all but floating through the still air of the cavern. Toothless matches her, spreading out his wings to find air currents that are not there.

For a time, they play the wave game, rising and falling, sinking down as if following a hillside and then scrambling _up up up_ with chirrups of laughter, racing each other to find the highest point to glide from. She is a quick and delicate flyer, smaller and lighter than he, and more than once, Toothless snaps around to block her only to find she is no longer there. She has slipped past his wings to hide behind him, and he must tumble over to find her again, catching only her tail as she climbs.

Side by side, trading off the lead as Toothless shows off how well he has learned this new place and Shiver dives in to guide him when he turns wrongly, they soar through the glowing caverns of the far-underground nest. It spreads out below and all around them, and Toothless tracks a single rough stream of glowing purple stone – perhaps it is the stone, perhaps it is the tiny mushrooms like tall, budding lichen that coat it; in this place, both glow. The stripe passes cave-mouths and perching ledges and a wavy stone shape like the ripples of sky-fires frozen into rock, or the cloth sail of a _pfikingr_ ship cut half-loose by a sharp and sneaking blade and left to flap.

Dragons rest and play and bicker, scattered throughout the nest, and many of them look up and notice black dragon and white dragon as they pass. Some cry out greetings, and others crouch submissively, and others spread their wings or paw at the air. A few breathe little _fwip_s of flame at them, going no further than that dragon's own nose, to draw their eyes.

Toothless welcomes the quiet. Their own home-nest is a loud and busy place, but _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ can always fly away if it becomes too loud, or find some quieter corner where they and they alone can fit. Here, there is only stone all over, and what secret places there are remain secrets to him. He has been warned already of _bad air_, and of flooded caves with powerful currents – it would be so easy to go too far and to get lost. Would this flock find them, if that happened? Surely they must know all the twists and corners of their nest, but the dragon-pair have always been able to find the _one _place no one else has explored, or that has been left forgotten. They have usually returned shaken and with bruises, too, with a story to frighten hatchlings into squeals of delighted terror.

Better to stay where they are watched and welcomed, and not to trespass somewhere dangerous or forbidden.

But still, it is pleasant to fly with only another beside him, even if she is not his Hiccup-_heart_.

_You here you like?_ Shiver asks as they drift through a deep cavern painted in golds – none of them look quite like sunlight – and greens – almost the shifting richness of a pine forest waving in the wind. _This you welcome-here always everywhere you want want yours yes certain-sure good good yes? yes-maybe? you want?_

Toothless purrs _approval_; he is happy to see the cave. He is happier still when Shiver leads him through another tunnel, ducking and spinning through the rocks squeezing it very narrow indeed, and he recognizes the place where they emerge.

Many dragons sprawl over the stones there, grumbling to each other. A large one he does not know dives to join them, returning from some errand with _irritation_ humping in its shoulders and licking at a foreclaw.

_This! know-this that-there we go there we down-down-down fly here look-here now!_ They are near the passage that leads to the way out, to the waterfall throat of the island that tries to swallow the sea! There is true sky this way, open and unbounded and ever-changing! There is the bright sun that warms basking dragons! There are clouds to chase and dive through! There are waves to challenge, and grass to roll in, and the moon to blink back to!

Startled, Shiver backwings in a tangled flutter, and twists aside. _This-here not-important boring you see fine done boring c'mon we go see!_

She turns sharply, with a shudder, fleeing the sight of it.

Toothless glances over at it longingly, but follows her further. Why is she so worried? _Anxious_ colors flare over her scales, and she shoves them back down before they can burst to life. Her small signals say that she believes she has done something bad, but what? They are only flying together, near a place where they have both been before.

Perhaps there is a dragon among the ones resting there she does not like, or that has chased her away with his fangs bared before, and Toothless rumbles _protect_ back towards those still-strangers. He will not let them hurt his Shiver-friend.

_You?_ he asks, catching up with her and veering close enough to jostle. _You worried why worried don't-like why? fine good you-here we fly._

Her shoulders slump, and she beats her wings harder before she can sink. Muttering _anxiety_ and quickly-muffled _fear _to herself, she flits away, racing for a cave-mouth high above.

But she does not cry _go-away!_ so Toothless follows, chasing the flip of her tail easily. He could catch it in his teeth and drag her down, shove his shoulder against hers and demand that she explain, but surely he does not need to. Surely they are friends enough that she can trust him with her fears? Does she think he will think less of her for having them? _Not-so!_ Toothless snorts, though she does not hear him. _He _has fears.

He has fears enough to make nightmares like traveling prey-beasts, gone for a while and then back again, racing in herds loud enough to make the earth shake.

The cavern the white dragon leads him to is as beautiful as anywhere else in this nest. On the far side of it, a small waterfall rushes over smoothed stones, catching the blues and the white-silvers and the orange-golds of it as it goes. The water tumbles into a shallow pool, glowing in light blues and bright greens from underneath, and the entire cave shines with its slow-moving light. Water-smoothed stones line the edges of the pool, and the colorful, much-varied mushroom plants that grow everywhere in Shiver's nest sprout from among them, trailing their stems in the clear water lapping at the shore. It might be deep enough to swim in, or perhaps just to slip on the drowned stones, going underwater with a splash, and stand up again.

It smells faintly of salt, and of things that grow without the sun, and of the tingling scent of all this hidden nest, like sparks on the back of Toothless' tongue.

On the shore, Shiver paws anxiously at the small rocks. There are no shells. _Look, _she says without enthusiasm. _Good yes you like?_

_Yes,_ Toothless agrees; he will bring Hiccup here to splash and swim in the clear water, when his other half wakes.

_Good here?_ she asks, _urgency _and _need _creeping into her signals. _Nest this home-nest mine yours-too you want? must! Must-say! good good!_ Her voice climbs higher and her signals flatten out as if she is trying to convince herself, too.

Toothless signals _agreement_; her nest is a wondrous place. To see such things is why he and Hiccup wander, to find what hides beyond the horizon – and now they have even wandered beneath the sea, where they thought never to go!

They could have left her above the pit to return alone, and known her safe, their work done, and taken the Lost One to rest elsewhere, but how could _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have been satisfied with that? They must always go and see, and here they have seen a thing as amazing as dragons and _pfikingr_ playing together!

It is a world without dangers, where dragons Like Them hatch little ones Like Them; the wonder and the joy of it is like turning his head and finding a thing that was under his nose all along, hiding there unseen, though searched for elsewhere and despaired of.

A world that should be nothing but darkness and stillness where nothing grows, only hollow echoes of dripping water shaping stone. Instead it is vivid and glorious with its own light, where dragons have made a world set apart from the world Toothless and his Hiccup-half have always known.

But a world where Shiver is judged and rejected because she was born without black scales.

But a world where dragons recoil and flee whenever Hiccup and Toothless try to tell them about where they come from – and they have tried, in stories and drawings and in their sounds for the warmth of the sun. A world where the dragons here do not want to hear about anywhere else, or perhaps where they do not understand.

It is _very _frustrating, to be rebuked, however shyly, for telling stories that are not even a _little_ pretended, when those stories were asked for. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have always been storytellers. Wails of _liar!_ chafe.

He does like her nest, Toothless promises her with a sigh and a low cry of _wonder _for this little pool and all the gorgeous caverns.

But –

_Don't-understand_, Toothless says, and starts to tell her about the dragons who will not listen.

But she will not listen either. _Hush!_ she cries, just like her flock-mates. Just like them, she looks shocked by her own boldness.

_No – must-not! this here_, she says, pawing at the ground and glancing around at the caverns beyond, _this safe important true-real – careful you no no that no wrong danger-warning fearful you hush you no!_

She shudders all over, flinching, and shakes away memories that must frighten her. She shuffles her paws together, and sets her shoulders _determination_, meeting Toothless' eyes with her own, bright blue like water that flows around an iceberg, clear and lovely and deadly. And she dips her head low, begging.

_Stay,_ Shiver asks, _longing_ trembling in her voice like a forest that stretches to the horizon, every branch and needle shuddering together.

But he is tired of being cringed to, and Toothless bares his teeth a little way _irritation_. _Shock _turns Shiver's eyes flood-dark, and he snaps them away quickly, whimpering a hurried _apology. Not-you_, he brushes her flash of fear away. _No no you-never sorry no._

What is she asking of him? What paces and howls behind her eyes? He is no king to taste her thoughts like a mother licking stains from her hatchling's scales, curious and gentle. Toothless can only answer from the truth he knows and all that he is.

Toothless knows where he belongs, and it is not beneath the earth.

_Stay-now_, he answers her plea. _Curious interested look go fly-far all-over yes curious like._ But he glances over his shoulder, back towards the passageway out.

_No! No-no-no you here you stay you always! You lead!_ Shiver crouches all the way down to the stone, pleading _Alpha_, cringing _Majesty_ as _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ would bow to their king. _Here you belonging-safe good here should-be right certain-sure belonging you-with-us –_

_You-with-me,_ she adds, peeking up at him, and Toothless sees the heart of her, showing plain through her eyes.

All his life, he has been surrounded by love. He was accepted by his flock's Alpha before he even burst from his egg, left there by the shadow-mother he never met, to be warmed by flock-mates who did not know him and did not need to. All eggs are loved, all hatchlings cared for.

Nameless and alone, but awash in a sea of the Alpha's love, he hungered, and he searched, crying for an emptiness that would not be filled. In time, he found another mother, and his name, and the other half of himself, and he was whole.

Together, the dragon and the dragon-child, Toothless-and-Hiccup, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, two-who-are-one interleaved until there was no difference that mattered between them, gained the love of their Cloudjumper-_guardian_ who loved their mother and her hatchlings. Under his protection, they flourished and they grew, they learned and they stumbled, they played and they fought, knowing they would always be watched over, and always be a _they_. When even Cloudjumper's wide wings were too narrow to contain them, they chased and explored and tempered their cleverness under the eyes of the flock that has always been, will always be, their family.

They have pined for the affections of their small friends, been jealous when they were overlooked for others, brought gifts or played tricks to win the favor of one or another of the fledglings they grew up among, welcomed often and always ready to prove themselves when they were not.

And always, always, the dragon-pair's love for each other has sustained them, the heartbeat of the life they share, simple and absolute and endless, an immovable stone underfoot.

What did they need with their she-cousins racing past with their tails waving, trailing those who would court her? To fly high together, to curl up in a nest and purr warmly, to guard eggs, to care for hatchlings – _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _have done all those things, and never worried that the hatchlings belonged to another, or that those who flew high together were doing other things that seemed to please them greatly.

But now…oh, now there is Shiver, who is as like Toothless as his shadow, or perhaps he is hers. Now there is Shiver, who smells good, her scent brushing against his nose like a feather. Now there is Shiver, who touches her nose to a little one that _she _could hatch with _longing_ in her sounds, and leans against his side. Now she turns her eyes up to his with a new light in them, and though Toothless has never seen it before – not this one, not quite this way…

…he has lived in love long enough to recognize another of its forms.

_Me_, Shiver offers him, body and heart and life.

She leaps to her feet and tears around in a tight circle, running off some of the torrent of _longing_ tearing through her and only chasing it higher. _You here yes you right! him-too,_ she adds, stumbling over her paws as if backtracking, flicking her nose at the empty space at Toothless' side, just where Hiccup often is.

_You-both yes fine good certain-sure fine welcome-here want want you want? I like,_ she promises, and a knot that tied tightly in Toothless' chest far away, in a forest in the moonlight in a snap of horror in those blue eyes, unravels and waves free. That knot was a corner of a net to hold him back, and it is fraying.

_He yours Hiccup-yours_, she clicks, a chirrup of _approval_ layered over the sounds _(click)-phuh_. _Clever he good like gentle-kind fierce-too interesting him he yours good-then him-too…You stay you-both!_

All good, and as it should be, and what she offers him, he _wants, _he does. He did not know that small red berries were good, until Hiccup had found them and judged them fine-to-eat, but from the first taste, Toothless had known that he would eat them all and hunt for more, if he could. _She _is just so, his Shiver-friend who offers herself as Shiver-_mate_; he did not know her before, but he needs only a taste to want her entirely.

But that net has so many knots, unbroken still.

But what then? She offers, and he _wants_, and…and there Toothless' imagination fails him, and looks further, and recoils.

She cried so desperately to return here, and she flinches at the thought of his world – she would not fly away with them, when _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ flew as they need to. Would she stay here? Toothless, loyal and loving and true, would not like to race always between their home-nest and their wanderings _and_ a mate left behind elsewhere.

And Toothless cannot imagine staying here forever, as she seems to be asking him to. To accept those crouches of _Alpha_ as his right, as she is crouching now, in a world without a sun? Where there would always be stone over their heads and around them, telling them how far they may fly? _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _would hurl themselves against the stone to break it, dashing themselves bloody against dead ends until the tunnels shattered and let them out.

To trade the wild, breathless glory of flying through a roaring thunderstorm, tumbling and diving and chasing winds that try to tear them from each other and fail always, for the endless silence of dripping water, only the roar of an untouchable cataract to remind them?

To never again follow the turning stars, chasing the horizon until they find some new adventure?

To never see all the world they have still to explore, or the friends they have made in the places they have been already?

To leave behind the home-nest where their family waits for the stories they bring, and worries for them when they disappear for too long? To never again wake warm and content in their nest-for-them, watching Hiccup draw on the walls and chase down their kin-cousins who steal anything he keeps? To trade the open meadow in the heart of their nest, and the wild tundra, and the trackless forests, for mushrooms that grow without the sun?

To leave Cloudjumper crying for them, searching the world in vain for his hatchlings who have finally flown too far?

To abandon the purpose their lost mother gave them? To never again set trapped dragons free and destroy the traps that catch them? To never again leave those who set those cruel traps baffled with empty bellies? That is what _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _are _for_!

For the promise of leading hiding dragons – with nowhere to lead them _to_?

Toothless could never, never live that way, and it would kill his Hiccup-_half_ as surely as a blade.

_This-here,_ Toothless signals _rejection,_ _not-mine-ours no-never home-nest no! out-there – yes!_ he snaps, when she recoils with her eyes wide, _is so – want go far-very-much-so we fly always yes certain-sure up-up-up need need love right-true!_

Toothless whistles the sounds for his flock-mates who have sounds, pawing and glancing at big dragons who are not here and small dragons Shiver will have to imagine, indicating _others_ far away that are missing from his side. _That-there up there yes certain-sure sun sky fly-far that mine!_

_That_ is his world, where horizons must be chased but cannot be caught.

_No!_ Shiver screams back at him, pacing wildly. One moment she crouches _appeal_, another she recoils _horror_, yet another she springs forward _challenge_, the next she dives between Toothless and the cave-mouth, rearing high and spreading her wings as if to shut him in like a misbehaving hatchling.

Toothless would like to see her try. He would not like to hurt her – they have only misunderstood each other, here – but if he wishes to leave this cave, he will.

_Out,_ she signals, glancing _up_ with a terrified shudder in her body, _no…no…_ She takes a deep breath, and screams, _lie!_

Perplexed, Toothless blinks at her.

_Here this real this true this so! that out-there wrong trick lie. _She collapses to the ground, closing her eyes tightly, and pretends sleep, but not the easy rest of a dragon well-fed and well-flown. Her eyes dart back and forth behind her eyelids, and she kicks her paws in short twitches, mewling as if a nightmare grips her in its teeth. _Bad dream._

Scrambling back to her feet, Shiver paws at the place where she was, _that_. _That out-there you want why? bad danger there not-true how you like? fear horror-terror wrongness so! No say! Bad! Forbidden-wrong you hush no-more no-look stay-away! here now! Rightness!_

He must not talk about it, she begs him, pleading. Everything is fine now, and he will ruin it all. _Why you go must-not don't-understand!_

_Sky,_ Toothless answers. _Here good yes sure home-nest yours beautiful…fly-far want want want, _he chatters, spreading his wings.

Shiver stares at him, panting and baffled and frightened, with the eyes of a dragon seeing her prey squeeze from beneath her claws and run when it should be very dead indeed.

_No,_ she cries again, howling _distress_. She scrambles to him, nudging her head against his chest and rubbing her face along his sides, nuzzling against him. _Stay you you-must need-you me me me please! you me like yes!_ She cries _disbelief_ and _wonder_ and _wanting _that this might be so.

_You here me brave you see? belonging-me you here want very-much-so here good now,_ she begs, crouching against his shoulder. _Need you!_

Trembling, she pleads _stay_ once more.

As good as she smells, as right as her shape is, as much as he admires her fierceness and her daring, as much as Toothless is grateful to her for bringing them here, as much as he hungers for her…

She asks too much.

He owed her his protection, under the sun. She is Like Them. She was trapped; she needed help. She is smaller and knew less of the world beneath the sky than _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do.

But he does not owe her his – their – life.

Stepping back from her, almost into the still-bright colors of the beautiful, empty pool, Toothless cries a sound he knows she knows. It is hers.

_Homesick_, says Toothless, longing for the sun and the open sky.

Shiver freezes entirely, staring at him, and he meets her eyes _resolved._ For heartbeats, they stare at each other, a flurry of tiny signals flickering across Shiver's scales and through Toothless' body, too fast to read but clear enough that neither of them will back down.

Toothless sees _determination _in her eyes harden into _desperation_, and he sees the fins at the base of her tail flare out and her outspread wings snap down towards him, but he does not understand the meaning of it before a scent as powerful as a stone slams into his skull.

And everything changes in a breath.

* * *

_Desire _sweeps over him – he cannot remember who _he_ is, except that he _needs_ – like a waterfall in the darkness, smashing him against stone blind and helpless and hungry. All the world spins around him, and settles on the she-dragon yearning towards him.

He has followed his instincts a very long way, knowing always where he was going, and he is _very _right to be here now, because all of them now point to her. He could walk away down all the tunnels (he could not; he could not bear to step so far away) and know still where she was.

Everything in his body and mind screams at him to go to her, to protect her from whatever terrible wrongness has brought that hateful _desperation_ to her eyes, to chase her and to catch her and to keep her all for himself. That is why he has wings and claws – he had never known that before. The powerful muscles in his hindlegs that let him spring up high and far – they are to leap for her, to catch her when she flies; he knows this now! Something terrible and ferocious and right blazes and thrashes in his gut, burning through him.

Did he remember berries, red and bright and sweet, before? Meaningless – now he thinks of _meat_, red and hot and bloody, tearing in his jaws. He has hunted prey from high above, diving and pouncing and tumbling them down to sink his fangs into the hot flesh of their sides. _Desire_ is the snap-quick moment of that dive, when everything folds together and he knows he cannot miss his strike, but with a wild, exhilarated joy, for now his prey _wants _to be caught! It is all a great game that they will get up from and laugh about and do all over again.

The slim lines of her are a _rightness_ beyond comprehension, and she smells _so good_, in ways that he did not realize dragons could smell; there is a richness to her scent that he will never understand, but he wants to press his nose into it and breathe forever.

He has smelled dragons flying to mate, but they were the wrong ones; _she_ is his and for him. Her scent surges into his nose the way his bared fangs fit together. It climbs up into the center of his skull to snap into a place he did not know was empty, and now will never forget. Her scent pours down into his body like fire in his blood, and he trembles beneath the burning rush of it.

That she is _there_ is a rightness, but it would be righter still if he was closer to her – she takes a single step backwards that he must take two to follow, closing the suddenly intolerable distance. Another step, and another, and that he has so many paws is a madness; if he could put all of them together, perhaps he could pounce upon her and be done.

Every piece of his body screams to touch and nuzzle and taste, a blinding jolt of rush snapping through him like lightning.

(He remembers lightning, somewhere else.)

He spreads his wings to leap after her and fly – as soon as she flees, he will follow – but she does not leap at once. He is satisfied with that; he will show her why she should fly. He can stalk around her with his chest puffed broad and his head high to show his unmarked throat. He does not lose battles, that throat says, but the scars he has collected – all for her – say that he can fight them!

She raises her head and purrs to him, crouching coyly, turning away to frustrate him when he lets his nose lead him to that perfect smell that is the world. He licks her side instead, pushing his nose into the hollow under her wing and finding no trespasser-scent there, only a hint of _anxiety_ in the fluttering of her breath.

Where is it, this thing that upsets her? _He will fight it for her!_ He will protect her always, the rightness of her and the needfulness –

That she needs him is obvious and right, and he needs _her_ so utterly he cannot think anything past it, only of _right-here-right-now_ that could be _always_ if she would only fly so he can catch her! All thought has been snatched away from him by the powerful scent filling his mind from one corner of his jaw to another; there is no space in him for anything else.

He paws at the ground that shines brighter still for the fire burning in his belly and all his limbs, down and out to his tail – if he dropped to the stone, surely it would burst into flames. But then she might flee and fly too quickly as he scrambled to rise again, and he could not _bear_ that, he must chase her and catch her – oh, she _must_ fly, she must!

He will be right on her tail, chasing her and that scent that maddens. They will fly and he will catch her, and they will fall together, and it will be the best of all things, and perfectly right.

They will fly _very _high, he knows, with nothing to stop them – and if something tickles at the back of his mind, howling to be remembered, it is forgotten as she tucks her head beneath his with a satisfied _purr_.

_Yes_ – and he returns it back to her, knowing in his body that he belongs _here_, with _her_. He licks hungrily at her head and the back of her neck, nipping at soft places but never to hurt or harm, no, only to catch and to claim –

A powerful surge of _belonging_ sweeps over him. Right here, right now, with her, and how could he think of leaving –

_(Was _he thinking of leaving? Why would he do that?)

(Who is he?)

– when all he wants is right here smelling so _good_? They will curl up together in a nest all their own here, and together they will make more little ones than the one that other not-his female had, to hatch and be his in a nest where she will be always safe, a nest with her and their hatchlings –

– and –

Wait –

No, wait –

There was a nest _before_, surely? Why can he not remember what was there, in that nest, that he loved and needed and wanted another way? Why can he not remember _how_ that felt, only _that_ it did?

What pulls at his heart not to be forgotten? It is deeper still than the scent that blinds him, filling up his mind like a cloud, like a fog…

There was a mind in the fog before, reaching for him, and its grip on him was shattered with a scream –

_Tt-th-ss!_ Hiccup screams, in memories that desire like an avalanche can only sweep away and bury, but never destroy, calling him back to himself by the half of his name that is his.

Toothless – _that _is who he is! – stumbles backwards, pawing at his nose. He closes his eyes tightly, shutting out bright-glowing colors and white scales alike, and shakes his head. The world is _more _than the narrow tunnel that had gripped his vision, showing him only Shiver – _that _is who _she _is, too! She cries out _distress_ as he recoils from her.

All his instincts scream at him to go to her, that she _needs_ him, that _he needs her_, but he remembers now that only moments ago, he had longed to fly another way. That she had begged him to stay, as her mate and as her Alpha, and he had said no.

Not like_ that_, caught beneath the earth and the sea.

And never, _never_ like _this_!

Toothless spins aside, and in a single swift leap, bounds for the mouth of the cavern and away, out into the open air. He plunges free with the cool still air of the underground nest pouring through his nose, clearing the choking scent of invoked desire from his mind. The overwhelming thoughts and the urges that her scent had set burning – they blow away as well, fading quickly.

He remembers them, but they do not control him anymore.

Staggering through the strangely thick air, Toothless finds a ledge broad enough to land on and crashes down to it, pawing at his muzzle and mewling furious _hurt_.

Anguished cries follow him, ignored, as he noses along his own side, searching for the scent-traces there of the other half of himself – how did he allow her to pull him so far away? He had _trusted_ her!

He feels pressure building in the air, like the heaviness before a storm, but it cannot be – there are no storms here. He cannot attend to it, because just then, Shiver touches down on the other end of the ledge as if she had any right to be near him. She cries out to be forgiven, but Toothless turns on her with a snarl and his fangs bared.

How _dare_ she? he howls, betrayed. Toothless has fought those who would control him before. He knows too well what it is to have his mind not be his own, his will taken from him, told to do things he would not choose to, and to fall beneath the weight of another's control.

The eater of dragons in the fog who was a _sickbadwrongthing_ and not an Alpha at all, who had fed on the flock she should have protected and demanded that they serve her and worship her – she had grabbed for him and lost him, not understanding that grasping one did not capture two, and that they belonged to another.

The dark Alpha who came with human killers to attack their home-nest and fight their king, to turn their home to blood and chains and ashes, answering to the Knotted Man as if he were the greater – he had worn Toothless down into exhaustion and slipped into his mind when Toothless could fight no longer, commanding him to answer to one he hated and to forget who he was. Hiccup had fought for him, then, and had blazed so fiercely to draw the Alpha's eye from him, long enough for Toothless to break free.

Toothless dreams about it sometimes, like drowning in an ocean without a surface, not even able to thrash and kick, as if he had turned to stone.

That this little she who had thought to be their friend should even _try! _Worse, that she had tried so _well!_ No usurping Alpha or mad eater had ever demanded that Toothless should _enjoy_ her control, and yet the scents trailing from Shiver that he can still smell make his mind spin with desire.

The desire was his, but that scent had taken his control of it from him. If she had not demanded that he stay down here in a closed world and offered herself as bait for the trap –! If she had offered freely, with their two-who-are-one nature understood and accepted –! If they had been under the open sky –! Then he would have flown to catch her willingly.

But that madness and blindness of need only of this body, drowning out his mind entirely, is _not his!_ He can set it aside like reeking offal from a kill that he would not eat, scratching earth over it as he would mess of his own or another. He can turn his tail to it and refuse to listen.

She has no right to take his thoughts and his choosing, even his _name_, from him. _She_ may not choose how he acts and what he remembers. She has no right to blind him so.

_No!_ Toothless rejects her, and closes his heart to Shiver's wail of despair.

All around him, that wave of pressure has been building, and all at once, there is a _surge_ of power, like a thunderclap without sound, like an Alpha's roar.

Toothless recognizes it, and he spins around with Shiver forgotten and all his thoughts smashed away, replaced by only one.

_Hiccup!_

* * *

_To be continued._

**Author's Note: **If at all possible, an even _worse_ time for a brief hiatus, but you want me to get later chapters right. _I_ want to get them right, and I need the time to do so. _**Freefall**_** will resume on July 19****th****. **Thank you for understanding! (In the meantime, there are still holes in my soundtrack, and suggestions are welcome!)


	16. Chapter 16

_**Freefall, **_**Part Sixteen**

Stoick has spent so many nights, of late, on the edge of the light. Staring into the fire, with the house he's lived in all his life around him. Alone with his thoughts and his memories, without anyone asking him for anything or even looking at him, except for the shadows he's given back the voice time stole. Not quite alive, and not quite dead. Waiting between, the twilight a refuge.

This is no different, really. Berk is dark around him, its people asleep in their homes, only the few small lantern-lights of those on guard scattered around. None of those guards noticed him, which suits Stoick fine; he knows Berk. Every step from the door of his house to here had been so familiar, he could have walked it blindfolded – and nearly had, with no lantern of his own.

But in front of him, Gobber's forge blazes brightly, the hearth stoked high. The counterweight bellows the smith built a few years ago groans and wheezes as it descends slowly, air flowing over the coals and the fire leaping. When Gobber shoves the sword he's working on into the firepit, it snaps like an angry dragon.

As usual, the forge is a ramshackle mess. If anything, it's worse than usual – sword blanks and rough-hewn rods and tools Stoick can't even name lie scattered around the anvil, while more stand propped up against the grindstone, looking like they'll fall over at the slightest jostle. There are scorched holes in the thatch from some explosion or another; Gobber firmly believes that no smith should have eyebrows for very long.

Stoick has often remarked that it's a good thing too, or Gobber would never be able to see out from under his, and has been chased off with curses.

Strips of leather and hide hang from the rafters, some of them with tools wrapped up in easy, one-handed slipknots. Various crates, stacked on top of each other, leak straw from their smashed-in sides.

In the middle of it all, Gobber hammers at the white-hot piece of metal with the mallet strapped to the stump of his wrist, other hand fixed firmly around the tongs holding it in place. The _clang _of metal against metal rings off the walls of the small homes and little storehouses all around. His neighbors must have their fingers in their ears and their pillows over their heads, although Stoick knows for sure that the elderly cousins who live in the nearest house are as deaf as Thunderdrums, and shout just as loud, too.

Stoick's house has been so quiet, standing here in the face of Gobber's noise feels like more of a victory than stepping outside at all. It's been just him, and the everyday sounds of the house, and the shade of the young woman leaning against one of the forge's posts, laughing at the din. Not all of it is metal.

"Do you think he knows how tone-deaf he is?" Valka asks, smirking. Some days Stoick despaired of ever being taken seriously again, once his best friend and the woman he loved decided to gang up on him for their own entertainment. The only advantage had been that Valka had been just as willing to help him play silly jokes on Gobber, and lie for him with a straight face when Gobber demanded to know – like he couldn't guess – who'd moved everything, _everything,_ in his forge a handspan to the left.

Stoick had done most of the heavy lifting for that, and hadn't regretted a moment of it. It had been enough to see Valka grinning so broadly she couldn't cover the expression with both hands, beautiful as sunrise in a grubby smock covered in ash stains and black grease. All the washerwomen in town hadn't been able to get the stains out, and they're still visible on that same smock now, belted tight with a red-dyed leather belt like a strip of fire.

"He says iron doesn't care," Stoick answers, flinching as the blacksmith launches into a new verse. Part of him wants to put his hands firmly over Valka's ears, as young as she looks. Gobber had better hope the gods he's singing about can't hear him – although how they could avoid doing so, Stoick can't imagine – or those lingering clouds might start sprouting lightning. Or worse, given that no one in that tale comes out with their dignity, and some people don't take jokes as well as they dish them out.

Valka's shade folds her arms over her chest like a defiant girl and waits with him, just watching Gobber at work. Maybe one day, Stoick thinks, he'll tell Gobber about her. Maybe his friend will understand, or at least not look at him with pity.

They've been friends all their lives, from the half-forgotten days of brawling, racing children to the single, terrible night when blacksmith's apprentice and chief's son became blacksmith and chief in a raid that nearly broke Berk entirely. Stoick couldn't have gotten through that night, and the chaotic days afterwards, without Gobber to lean on. They'd relied on each other when the responsibilities thrust on them both became too much to bear, an unspoken pact between them that when one of them got stuck or didn't feel like he could manage all that was being asked of him, the other would help.

Sometimes Gobber had just listened as Stoick paced and swore and counted out everyone they'd lost that night on his fingers, even when the addition of Gobber's newly single hand wasn't enough to name all the dead. Sometimes Gobber had been able to look at everything crashing down on his friend with new eyes, and think of some new way to face them, even if most of his ideas were half-mad. At least he'd gotten Stoick thinking – even laughing, occasionally.

And when the task of rebuilding Berk one more time fell mainly on Gobber's shoulders, he'd known that Stoick would understand if it couldn't all be done at once. The new chief had defended him when everyone had demanded that _their _house or _their _sword or _their _ship be fixed first. Stoick had thrown more than a few punches for him while Gobber built himself the first of many clubs to fit the empty place at the end of his arm.

But outside the bad days – and there have been many – there have been the good times they've had together, jeering at each other and trading off terrible jokes, staying up late with ale mugs in hand and increasingly wild stories to spin, fighting side by side and laughing at the trouble Berk's people manage to get into.

In a strange way, Gobber has always been Stoick's window onto a world he could never be part of. Stoick had always known that he would be the chief someday, and his father had ensured he'd never forget it.

He's always had the responsibility. Sometimes he suspects that Gobber has had all the fun.

In the forge, Gobber raises his hammer-hand and doesn't bring it down again, and while the echoes die away – if Stoick's ears weren't ringing, he might hear people shouting "Finally!" from nearby houses, and collapsing into what sleep they can – he picks up the battered sword blank in his tongs and transfers it into a water barrel to temper.

"Think you've beaten it into submission, or is the iron winning?" Stoick asks.

Gobber drops his tongs, trying to spin around and jump into the air all at once, and trips, catching himself against the bellows. "What th' – ye _blazin' lump _o' softfoot Viking sneakabout, whaddya call this, aye? Creepin' about a' nights to pop up and jump a' people, what are ye, twelve? Worse than tha' bluidy Zippleback likes to sit on me roof and play hangabout over the eaves, ye are, and what, 'ave ye been roamin' around the village in the dark all this time, playin' a' ghosties? Damn ye, Stoick, I oughta chase ye right back up tha' hill wi' yer britches afire, I should! Gi' me sommat real t' worry about ye for."

Ignoring Valka's laughter, Stoick raises his hands in mock surrender and rumbles, "Breathe, Gobber."

"_Breathe, _th' man says, I'll give ye _breathe_ – ye're truly here, aye?" His friend stumps through the clutter without missing a step, and pokes Stoick sharply in the chest with a single finger. "Damn. Had me plans all set to swarm yer house wi' Terrors, just gotta train 'em all t' cough up on cue and sing… Damn, it's good ta see ye, Stoick!"

Gobber beams at him, even as he shudders. "Like ye were gone fer real, ye great blockheid, only ye were right there all along. Wha' brings ye out now, then? Was it me singin'? 'Cause I've got more verses – no, don't ye make that face a' me, I've got me wards up, don't I? Ain't been struck by lightnin' yet!"

Without pausing for Stoick to contemplate the usefulness – or not – of the tangles of metal and string Gobber swears by, Gobber thumps his hand down on his friend's shoulder and practically orders him, "Don't ye go ennawhere, now ye're here. I've got th' last bottle of sharp stuff those hellions didn't set afire, and ye bein' alive after all deserves it!"

"Dare I ask which hellions?" Stoick asks. Out of the corner of his eye, as the cool sea wind rushes over the village, he sees Valka stretching her hands out to the forge-fire with a blissful smile on her face. Beyond her, a small candle-flame held in someone's hand gutters, and the dark figure hurries on. Stoick can't tell who it is, which is strange – he knows everyone on Berk. But then they're wrapped up in a heavy cloak, so probably their own sisters couldn't recognize them.

"Which d'ye think?" Gobber calls from the wedged-open door to his workroom and house, which backs onto the forge. Small _thump_s and _crash_ sounds tell Stoick he's searching for the promised bottle. "Bluidy twins kin set _themselves_ on fire an' think it's funny. Ye better not be followin' me! 'cause who knows if ye'll ever leave, an' I bet ye snore."

"Says the man hammering iron at midnight," Stoick tosses back. "And I do not snore."

"You snore like a foghorn, my love," says Valka, far too cheerfully for a woman who's not there. She winds her long braid around her wrist, looking around at the siege defenses with that critical eye; beyond the bright light of the forge, they're barely more than darker shadows in the night-black village.

Out beyond the harbor, the lights of Drago's fleet gleam. Gods, Stoick hates to see them out there. He'd spent years of his life praying Drago Bludvist would never make it to Berk, wondering how he'd fight back if that madman decided they were his next target, and never found an answer.

Drago is dead and gone, and Stoick had laughed in his face once more and enjoyed it, but that his stain on the world remains – and _here_, of all places – is like a tiny shred of meat caught between his teeth. Impossible to ignore, and impossible to shift.

"Where are all the dragons?" Valka asks, her young face drawing down into a puzzled, half-hurt scowl. She worries at the hem of her blue tunic, fretfully.

It's a good question, so when Gobber returns with a leather bottle and two wooden mugs stacked on top of it, Stoick asks it for her.

"Missed it all, didn't ye?" Gobber says with a snort. "And how did ye, anyway? That big fireball last night? Them on Outcast Island probably saw it."

"I heard the blast," Stoick answers carefully; the words _it woke us up _sit so easily on his tongue. He'd jolted awake with his heart racing to that bitter-bright old battle-song, hand already outstretched for his warhammer and his feet on the floor before his eyes were open, ready to charge to the defense of his tribe against the dragons descending from the sky. It had taken several racing breaths before the rest of his world had come into focus. The house. The peace. Valka, beside him and untouchably far, her so-young face pale with his shock. The dragon-eyed child vanishing up the ladder to the loft. Stoick had only caught a glimpse of him, but then that's all he ever sees. The little he can have, he treasures, in hopes of more someday.

"I saw the fire – the village wasn't hit?"

"Wasn't them tha' hit us." Long habit has Stoick taking the mugs from Gobber as the smith pours, handing him one only after he's set the flask down. His friend raises the mug in a toast. "It's like this, see…"

Stoick's grateful for the drink by the time Gobber's talked him through it, if only because without it to stop his tongue, he'd be cursing the men who came to take their dragons like Berk is nothing more than a farm for tame yaks.

"…so Astrid's taken 'em all off to hide fer a bit, just 'til that lot sulk off again wi' their pockets empty," Gobber finishes, tossing back his mug and gasping at the fire burning down his throat. "Ye gods, Elva, ye're brewin' this stuff raw…"

"You're right. I would have liked her," says Valka softly, and for a moment the night is familiar enough to break his heart. There should have been so many _more _nights like this, the three of them all here for real. They would have held Berk safe and dreamed of more and made it happen, and they'd all have laughed so much more than they ever got the chance to.

He never would have _asked _for the fist that fixed itself around his heart, that day in the snow, but Stoick is quietly grateful that if it had to happen, at least it had happened now. When else could Berk pass into the hands of a chief who's so comfortable on dragonback, who has done more than anyone to insist, to demand, that dragons can be part of Berk's tribe too? And to protect them just the same.

What could Stoick have done, in his protégé's place? He could never fly the way Astrid does – Valka raises an eyebrow at him, and he offers her the smallest smile where Gobber can't see, remembering his promise – but she has more weapons to fight this war than he could ever have dreamed of.

"Clever of her," is all Stoick says.

"'twas my idea, of course."

Stoick manages a grin, and Gobber sets his empty mug down on the flat of his hammer-hand, shaking his head. "And who'd've thought, aye? Riskin' our lives fer dragons. Ye'd asked me before, if people came promisin' to take all th' dragons away, and I'd have welcomed 'em here with a hot meal and cheers. But we're never goin' back there, are we?"

"I hope not," Stoick says, over Valka's cry of "You'd better not!"

"Can't see it, me. Gone a day, and I already miss 'em – though I'll deny it, you ever say I said so! Weird to see not a one of 'em flyin' about the harbor, or yellin' at each other from opposite sides of a bridge like the silly things don't 'ave wings. So many babbies cryin' for their friends, wanted to stick me head in yon water bucket. Had to light me forge meself!"

"How did you ever survive?" Stoick deadpans, and Gobber pulls a face at him.

"Ah, it's lonely, aye? Like we had a bunch a' new people move in, and they're not like us, but they're people, yeah? Wings an' tails an' firebreathers, and mebbe they don't talk like us, but ye can talk _to _'em. Happy when they're safe, and they cry when they're hurt, and that's good enough fer me, now they feed themselves most a' the time an' step careful. Trade those bluidy Thorston twins in for dragons any day."

"Good," says Stoick, and it's not nearly enough. Such a small word, for the world that Valka dreamed of, that he couldn't give her in life. But he's still determined to put that world back together for their son.

One day, it won't just be the shadow of a child who never was, peering over Gobber's workbench and trying to grab the tools scattered across it, scampering across the wreckage of the ill-fated snowblower and springing onto the hearth beside his mother. It's all Stoick can do not to leap to his feet and grab the dragon-eyed child – he knows the boy isn't really here, that he's just the mask Stoick's own thoughts are wearing, but _godsdammit_, it looks like the boy's about to throw himself into the fire.

One day, if Astrid's dreams that she works for and Stoick's own hopes keep this island a safe place for dragons to live peacefully alongside Vikings, it'll be Stoick's real son here. Both of his sons. Dragon, or human – it won't matter. They'll be safe here whatever they are.

He struggles to imagine Toothless quite as small as Valka's child. But sometimes, like now, as the illusory boy stops on the edge of the hearth, staring into the flames, the shadow he casts has wings.

Before Gobber can catch him staring, Stoick tears his eyes away from remembered mother and imagined child, blinking into the darkened village. There are still people out there, moving quietly, deeper black shapes in the night. Well, it's rare for Berk to be completely still. He and Gobber are awake, and of course there should be people on watch, given that there's a giant war fleet in their harbor.

But…

Something about them isn't right. Well-trodden instincts hiss that something is wrong here, and listening to them has never steered him astray. Those instincts have kept him alive in pitched battle, telling him _move, move now!_ and they've kept him from believing wild excuses offered up by nervous Berkians struggling to explain why this particular piece of wreckage, here, that they are standing in the middle of, is not their fault.

Are those even people? No man Stoick knows has a head like that, long and pointed and melting into a stocky, shapeless body. Or are they some nightmare he's dredged up from a forgotten dream? He's never been sure – does a man going mad _realize_ how far he's slipped into chaos?

Gobber doesn't seem to notice them – Stoick counts six, now, which is six more than he likes. The smith is still talking, waving off the ships in the harbor with his empty mug. "Now we've just gotta get rid of tha' lot, once they figure out there's nothin' here for 'em," he says.

"Right…" Stoick says, squinting at the creature as it crouches to the little flame, too small to show it clearly, at its feet. If it isn't real, why would he be imagining _that_? And if it is…who is that? _What_ is that? And what in all the hells does it think it's doing on Berk?

He'd rather be mad than wrong.

In a low voice, Stoick asks, "Gobber…don't ask me why, but is there someone standing there?"

Instantly wary – if Gobber were as foolish as he sometimes sounds, he wouldn't be Stoick's best friend – the smith casually turns to set his mug down, and just happens to turn towards the way Stoick's facing.

"Aye, why wouldnae there…who's tha'?"

The little fire at the figure's feet swings up, burning brightly as it finds something to devour, and in that brief flare of light, Stoick can see the curve of a longbow in full draw.

And the first fire arrow slams into the thatch of Gobber's forge at point-blank range.

* * *

Many things happen all at once; only later does Stoick have time to sort through it all, and by then, it's too late.

The bundled wheat straw of the forge roof, laid down again and again as fire caught it from above and below, takes the fire arrow like a knife driven through a man's ribs. The armor outside is strong; the flesh within is weak, and the fire jumps to the inner layers of thatching with a hungry roar. A second arrow joins it, placed just as deeply, and fire rains down on Gobber's forge as the blaze spreads.

The men wandering around Berk, their heads down, set up an eerie, yipping howl like a pack of mad dogs, and leap to the attack. They appear out of the shadows they'd hidden in, so many more than the few Stoick spotted. Only visible when they move, they go from stillness to strike in a heartbeat, an army from nothing.

All at once, the raiders draw swords from beneath their heavy cloaks and slam blades and hilts and bodies alike into the doors of village houses, smashing through doorjambs and slicing open hasps that were never meant to hold against human attackers. Howling, they burst into the homes of sleeping families.

Stones hiss down from above, striking the packed dirt of the village with _thunk_s like twisted rain.

And Stoick snatches up a sword from all those blades lying around and runs, roaring, Gobber right beside him.

His people are screaming as enemy warriors wrench them from their beds, and there are strangers _in his village_, and Stoick is not so old a warrior that a sword's hilt doesn't smack into his hand like it belongs there, like a lodestone that won't be turned.

And why shouldn't it? His hands have been shaped to fit swords all his life; his legs have always been ready to leap into combat; his arms have wielded weapons against men as well as dragons; his throat knows the shout of fury and disbelief and denial that tears from it like an arm ripped from its shoulder. His feet care nothing for the darkness between him and the archer scrambling away; _this is Berk_, and Stoick the Vast knows every footstep of his home.

The peace he's enjoyed with his wife's shade at his side was a gift, but Stoick was born for battle.

His world narrows to the slinking man stumbling over his little lantern, dropping his bow as he turns to flee. Maybe this is what a hawk, or a dragon, sees as it dives. Not the friend as dear to him as a brother, yelling beside him, and not the so-young shade snatching up her dragon-eyed child and vanishing.

Nothing but the enemy.

Rage washing over him, a familiar tide, Stoick doesn't bother with the sword. He tackles the fleeing archer, slamming his entire body into the smaller man's with a crash. Something snaps between his side and the alley wall, and since it's not in his chest, Stoick bares his teeth in a snarling grin and steps back just far enough to catch up the man by his – cloak, it's a fur cloak – and bring the flat of his blade down on that strange-shaped head.

Bone shatters, and the shape crumbles away. As the flames from the burning forge leap higher, turning the village into a nightmare come back to life, Stoick sees a wolf's skull fracturing over the man's own. Its fangs have dug two deep furrows into the archer's forehead, and blood drips into his dazed eyes as he goes limp in Stoick's hand.

With an oath to melt pitch, Stoick drops the archer. _"To arms!"_ he roars, all the old habits slipping back over him like the armor he's not wearing. "_Berk! Get up!_"

Chaos has swallowed Berk as easily as a fish down a dragon's throat – Stoick charges at the nearest wolf-skulled man as he kicks a woman's feet out from under her and hauls her out into the open, her punches and clawing fingernails finding nothing but skull and fur. A single two-handed strike puts that one down and sets his shrieking captive free, but what seems like a small army of men in wolf hides has taken the village by complete surprise.

Gobber chops a path through the fighting with his hammer-hand knocking down anyone the axe in the other doesn't send fleeing, but there's no one to help him put out the fire devouring the forge's thatching and racing towards his workshop house. The men and fighting women of Berk are fighting for their lives and their families. Screams of disbelief and fear rise over the roars of those who have managed to find their feet and their weapons, even as they blink sleep from their eyes and stumble barefoot across packed earth broken by flying stones.

Children's voices wail their terror, sharp and chilling through the walls of their homes and from the heart of the battle they've been dragged into by monsters with the skulls of wolves, forcing Berk's fighters to hold back their blows lest they strike their own children by mistake. Actual Terrors erupt from amidst the fighting – and the battle has broken out in every corner of the village, all on that first signal – zooming away into the sky with shrieks of fear and outrage. One runs full-on into a panicked chicken, and feathers fly; the tiny dragon, with no desire to fight _anything, _scrambles away from the outraged bird and vanishes.

The silly little things must have even less idea of what's happening to their home than Stoick does. As he slices at a wolf-skulled man with a frightened-mute child under each arm, his own teeth bared to match the gaping skull, Stoick at least knows how to look at a battle and read it like footprints in the sand.

This is no dragon raid of years past, he sees at once. Berk's warriors used to be ready to be woken up in the dead of night, but the stumbling, squinting people being dragged from their homes and herded into their rough excuse for a town square have been taken entirely by surprise.

Stoick catches the stab of a hook-ended spear on the edge of his blade, sets his feet and lunges into it, slicing past the grip and the haft and forcing the invader back. Beneath his wolf skull, with most of its fangs knocked out, the man sneers at him and tears a short knife from his belt, stabbing up – Stoick tears his sword free and drives his knee into the enemy's belly. Kicking the knife away as the raider collapses to the ground, retching, Stoick steps over him and doesn't take too much care not to step on the man's knife hand as he charges at another raider. The moment's stumble is more than worth the agonized scream.

He doesn't stop to ask who these men are, or what they want – Stoick _doesn't care_.

They're attacking his people, and the roar of pure, violated rage tearing from his throat is all that matters.

There are people he knows, the fear in their eyes turning to surprise and delight as they spot him, calling out, "Chief!" and "Form up on the Chief!" and "Up Berk! Berk for the battle!" –

There is the howl of the forge burning behind him, the heat crinkling the skin on the back of his neck and Gobber's furious curses, cutting through even the chaos and din of the fight sprawling over the entire village –

There are strange voices shouting strange orders, and that demonic yipping as the wolf-raiders close in on their prey like they think Berk's people will be hunted like _sheep_, and a furious, fervid, oddly familiar shriek –

There are cries of triumph and screams of pain and the clash of metal against metal, blades chopping into solid wood and the _thunk_ of sling-stones pelting down into the melee from…

"On the roofs!" Stoick roars, sweeping the space around him clear for a stolen moment and raising his sword to point. "Slingers on the roofs! Get 'em down! Where are my archers?"

Another day, he'll remember that he is no longer the chief of Berk; here and now, he's the chief Berk's got, and he's the chief Berk knows. Some of his smaller, lighter warriors – Stoick recognizes some of those kids that follow Gustav around – boost each other onto the roofs of houses and go for the figures standing tall raining stones down upon them.

For a moment, there's all the rush of a pitched fight washing over him, filling him up like a flame, and Stoick feels like he's come back to life. He can feel his pulse in his ears like a war drum, beating out the rhythm for oarsmen and swordswomen alike, urging him on; the breath in his lungs is heavy with ash and fear and blood but there's a jolt in it like lightning –

Something hits him, and the world lit by flickering fire goes grey, spinning around him as a _crack!_ shatters that drum. For an instant, it all goes silent.

Stoick feels himself collapsing to his knees, and things shuffle around him like so many windblown blades of grass, moving and shifting, not one of them tied to another.

Pain burns through the back of his skull like…_like a rock, yes_, is the first full thought Stoick grasps, far too many moments later. The ground is hard beneath him, dirt scuffing up beneath his nails as he grips at it, trying to keep the earth in one place long enough for him to stand again. Why are there so many feet down here?

He doesn't need to lift a hand to feel the lump swelling on the back of his skull; it feels like it must be glowing with all the red his hair used to be.

_Godsdamned slingers hit me – _and Stoick tries to stand up.

Hands grip his arms and haul him upright, and Stoick looks around into familiar, frightened faces, bruised and bloodied.

"What happened?" he asks, his voice gritty in his throat. "What – no…"

"They ambushed us, Chief," one of the older Nokkvessons says, frustration and hurt in his voice. "Crept in with the dark –"

Stoick rumbles, "I was there," shrugging off the man trying to hold him up. He's not so old he can't stand on his own.

But he can't say the same for some of the people gathered into the square – gods, this must be all of Berk. Hobbling grandfathers and weathered-hard great-grandmothers, cradling snuffling children to leave their kinfolk free to fight, stand side-by-side with blood-smeared teenagers and clusters of warrior men with no weapons but their fists. Dust coats all of them, as if they'd had to be knocked down before they would surrender.

"Thought you were dead, Chief," someone else says, resting a hand on Stoick's back. "You went down, and we…" She trails off.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up," those red-haired twins with the freckles are whispering to each other, clinging to each other's hands with their eyes shut tight. "Just a bad dream. Just gotta wake up. Wake up, sister, wake up…"

Stoick wishes he could believe it. He can't.

This is real. The monsters who have herded his people into a single bleary, confused, frightened crowd are men, and they have won.

Berk is taken.

Berk is lost.

* * *

What he can't figure out is _how._

"Fighters to the outside," Stoick orders hollowly, the tactics of so many battles good only to buy a few moments more if the raiders close in for the kill. Blades flash from the fringes of the crowd, catching the light from the wreckage of Gobber's forge and the battle torches as they're lit, one by one, by Berk's enemies. "Everyone else, within."

He takes stock of his Vikings as they move, shuffling and limping and scuttling, a ragged flow of people sorting themselves into defenders and defended. Gods, Stoick has known these people all his life. Is he about to see them all die? He can feel his heart sinking in his chest, trailing little bubbles of failure as it drowns. It's somewhere below the waterline beneath his feet now, and falling fast.

On the edges, Gobber spits dispirited curses at the men standing between him and the collapsed ruins of his forge. Stoick's brief flare of relief at seeing his friend still alive is clipped short, flinching in sympathy for the arm that ends in the stump Gobber tries so hard to make light of. The raiders have taken that from him like they've taken every other weapon.

The only good news there is that while the forge wasn't built to burn down, exactly, it's always been a possibility, and the ring of bare earth around it isn't entirely down to Gobber's terrible singing. Four men in wolf pelts, the bleached bone of their skull helms staring blankly, stand around it. Stoick can only hope they're there to keep the fire from spreading. He'd rather see the village burn than his people slaughtered, but _neither_ would be preferable, given the chance.

All around the village, the remaining battle torches flare to life, turning night to dawn. Still directing his people with part of his attention, deliberately ignoring the ache from the sling-stone that had downed him, Stoick scans their faces, stacking up everything that doesn't make sense here.

Drago's men once, obviously. War-hardened fighters, scarred and beaten, hard-eyed and well-armed, and organized. A few of them are dyed in the blonds and reds and pale skins of mostly local folk, but more of them have dark, heavy hair and blunter faces under those wolf skulls. Some of them wear a single pelt, the legs and tail still visible; larger men have patched their cloaks together from different-colored hides.

He doesn't waste his time looking for pity, or mercy. Stoick doesn't expect any such thing from Drago's men.

Strangers to Berk – and that, more than anything, is making Stoick wonder.

"How did they know?" Stoick mutters, having worked his way around to Gobber's side. Under the disguise of comforting his friend – the hand on Gobber's shoulder is real – he lowers his head and growls, "This was tactical. We'll rebuild your forge, Gobber –"

"Aye, never doubted it," Gobber snarls back, piling anger on top of the trepidation Stoick can't help but feel along with him. "Mebbe get summa this lot t' do it, aye? Kin find meself a godsdamn whip, gimme a count o' twenty or so…"

"– but look," he says quietly, nodding across the way. Their little jail, which usually stands empty and is more for locking up drunks until they sober up and quit groaning about the headache, but which _looks _like an armory, is untouched. "How did they know where to hit us?"

These are strangers to Berk – but as Stoick looks around, a too-familiar figure strides past the soldiers guarding them, surveys the captured Vikings, and grins maniacally.

Built strongly, his tunic cut back to show the soldier's muscles he flaunts, red hair growing back in patches from too many scorches, a crossbow slung over his shoulder and a heavy sword at his side, the island he's always hated defeated by the soldiers he led here and pointed at just the right targets – Dagur punches a single fist into the air, and laughs.

"Got you, Astrid!" Dagur the Deranged, onetime Chief of the Berserkers, shouts at Berk's people and the night. "I win! Take _that!_"

* * *

"Look at your _faces!"_ Dagur jeers, snickering, and then bursting out into a proper laugh that makes the nearest gaping Berkians shrink back from him. Oh, and he's pointing at them with a crossbow. "What, did you forget who you were dealing with? Like if you just sat up here and pulled in your heads like stupid turtles I'd go away? As _if!_"

All the frustration that's built up in his chest like a flood behind a storm-debris dam cuts loose all at once, and maybe if he yells really, really loud forever Dagur will be able to let it all out, or maybe he won't, maybe he'll just run on it forever, because -

"It is _so! Boring! _Out there!" he shouts, jabbing a finger over their heads at the iron ships somewhere out floating around on the ocean like giant boring lumps. "Huh, like you lot are any match for us, if they'd just listen to me like they're supposed to. Some warriors _that_ lot are, huh? Not like my friends here," he grins, clapping a hand down on the back of the man nearest him. The wolf warrior doesn't even stagger beneath the blow.

"See how tough they are? They're _real _fighters! Not like you lot, hiding behind dragons all the time. Seriously, how awesome are they?" Dagur demands of his captive – _so totally _captive, those are the best – audience of bleary-eyed Vikings. Some of them are even trying to hide behind each other, like frightened girls. Oh wait, some of them are girls. Huh, he could tell them stories about _girls._

Where is Astrid, anyway? Shouldn't she be yapping at him about something or other by now, up in his face and going all flashy-eyed and indignant? He never thought he'd _want _to see stupid Astrid, but how's he supposed to gloat if she doesn't come out and face him?

"Yeah, Úlfurstríðsmaður!" Dagur yells, stumbling over the word maybe a little bit. _Ulfur scrivsmavur _is pretty hard to say even when he isn't drunk, although he kind of is. Drunk on _victory!_

The wolf warriors set up their yipping howl anyway, and Dagur shudders with the fantastic eerie creepiness of it, grinning with all his teeth. He's got to get a wolf skull. No, maybe even a _dragon _skull!

Dagur howls along with them, on top of the world, all that frustration tearing out of his throat like an arrow from a bow, and absolutely _nothing's _as good as the fear in all those eyes.

Now _this_ is why he spent so much time crammed onto leaky little boats while the rust-stinking soldiers – when he's in charge like he's _supposed _to be, he's gonna make them all scrub out their armor in sand barrels – grouched and complained and whined and told big lies about flying transport boats! _This _is why he kept his mouth shut, well, most of the time at least, when no one listened to him even after that weird whitehaired creep Grimmel went away.

_This _is totally why he'd punched that one guy in the teeth, and all of his wolfheaded friends too when they'd piled on him. Yeah, sure, so Dagur had been about to chew his own arm off at the elbow just for something to do, and insulting the growly guys with dead wolves on their heads had seemed slightly more amusing, but pretty good move, right? And a pretty good punch, too, the wolf warriors had said when they propped him up and poured some ale down his throat and the rest over his head and shoved another mug into his hand when he sneered at them and shouted for more.

_Such_ a clever plan to find the one faction in the entire useless worn-out half-beaten so-called _army _that still wanted to fight!

When _Dagur's_ in charge, they're gonna have to smarten themselves up some, quit scuffling over who's gonna lead them now that that Drago guy is gone and act like real warriors. Man, that Drago really must have been something, because he's dead and bones and they _still _talk about him with their voices low, glancing over their shoulders like the guy's ghost might be sneaking up on them.

Let 'em tremble! Dagur actually got their whole mission _done!_

He's taken Berk! No one's _ever _taken Berk!

"You lot can't patrol for _beans!_" Dagur rolls his eyes at the Berkians, pacing around them because he's _held. Still. for. Days. and. Days._ No more of _that!_ Maybe he'll run up the side of this house and jump off it. He could do it. There's one of their slingers – yeah, that's Skepps, guy actually put a rock up his nose when Dagur bet he wouldn't – climbing down now that they've won, so if he jumped onto that water barrel and onto Skepps' head he could be on the roof in no time, easy…

"We've been on your sorry little island for days, and you never saw us," he gloats, laughing. He pulls a face at a blond kid who's standing with his fists clenched, practically vibrating like a bowstring about to tear the skin off someone's wrist, and gets a flaming-mad glare in return. "This lot, they're awesome hunters. You know they have to fight a wolf all by themselves to join? With just a knife! I want to do that! Huh, we should have been doing that for years on, oh yeah, _my island_, maybe scare some fierceness into those useless layabouts and get rid of the cowards…"

Dagur has to stop and think about it for a second. Where is he going to get the wolves? Berserker Island doesn't have any, which seems like a real disappointment now. Maybe the wolf warriors could catch a few rather than killing them. There's a ton of dragon-catching stuff on some of those ships out there.

He'll figure that out later – right now he's having to wiggle his feet just to keep from jumping up in the air and yelling at the sky.

Dagur does a little dance anyway, snickering at the now _totally _confused Berkians. They look really silly with their lips all curling. "Yeah, sure, _now _you see me! One of your stupid shore patrols practically stepped on us!"

Djupvik and Soby had crept after the stumbling Berkians, low and looking like wolves in the undergrowth, until Alghult had snapped a small twig between his fingers and signaled them to stop. "Blind idiots couldn't spot a dragon in a sheep field. We've been here while you got all busy burning stuff down – why'd you do that anyway? – and no one ever saw us, and I win, me and my wolf boys here! I am totally keeping them!"

These guys are what his Berserkers should have been all along. Real warriors, always ready for a fight, and none of this stand-off-at-a-distance-and-throw-rocks crap either. The wolf warriors were Drago's first wave attackers, Dagur thinks he remembers. There had been a lot of ale involved, and he'd been trading grudges and resentments back and forth with them for most of the night.

They get what being a Viking is all about. They charge, they smash, they attack, and they never have to worry about whether it's 'a good idea' or not. Dagur's going to punch the next person who asks, "Are you sure that's a good idea, sir?"

Oh wait. He had. That whatshisface guy, with the turtle armor. Turtle brain, too.

It had almost been _easy _to wait, knowing that there was an actual plan and it was his plan, that he was in charge the way he should be, that he'd finally gotten his army of awesome warriors all following him. And now all the waiting's done with, and he – Dagur the Deranged, Chief of the Berserkers again any day now – has done the impossible and taken Berk!

Right out from under the nose of its high-minded, gutter-thieving little girl chief, and he bets she regrets how many times stupid Oswald dragged him by an arm to Berk now! Dagur knows where everything is. They never move stuff. He knows all the hiding places, because he'd chased Astrid out of them when she was just a bratty tiny girl. Sometimes he'd even gone to the hiding places first, so he'd be waiting there for her.

Once Oswald had vanished – good riddance – the hateful treks to Berk had stopped, and Dagur had taken over as Chief of the Berserkers with a hidden sigh of relief. Being the chief was only what he deserved, he knows, but it had been a lovely little gift to know he'd never have to see Berk again, unless it was through the sights of a crossbow.

Seriously, had no one managed to find her? So much for Vaarnen and Ilskov's much-bragged-of tracking skills, or Loberod's groan that Dagur had described the stuck-up wench so many times a blind man could draw her. One single target! One blonde girl with a blue Nadder! They couldn't even do that?

Actually, where are Berk's dragons?

Probably scared.

Not totally stupid, then.

"Where _are _you, Astrid?" Dagur jeers, pushing past Borbjerg, who's guarding the crowd with an axe over his shoulder. "You just gonna let me get away with this? Not so tough after all, huh? Can't face me without a dragon to back you up?"

He grabs a Berkian in each hand and shoves them aside, stomping into the edges of the crowd. People push and stumble to get away as Dagur charges through them, scanning the vaguely familiar faces for the one face he _wants_ to see here, defeated and captured and finally forced to admit she's second-best. Someone makes a grab for his sword, like they'd stand a chance, and Dagur lashes out without looking at them, a sharp backhanded blow that crunches into a throat and leaves gagging sounds and the gasps of high-voiced women in his wake.

"I've beaten you!" he jeers into the press of unarmed bodies. "Come out and admit it! Hiding among people who can't deal with real warriors, huh? Coward!"

None too soon, he emerges on the other side of the rapidly parting mob and spins on one heel to glare back at them. Does it without falling over, too. He can do that even on a pitching longship. Giant iron ships are gonna spoil his reflexes, especially when all they do is just sit. Slow boats anyway.

Dagur calls, "Come out and admit I've won, Astrid!" into the mob, light from the battle torches flickering over their faces. "And then I might even let them go, once my friends here have taken all your dragons. You want your precious tribe? Can't have both!"

He feels his chest inflate like a bubble with how incredibly _smug_ he feels – and no one could argue he doesn't deserve it, or is he not standing here with the biggest tribe in the Archipelago all but under his heel? He has only to bring it down. He could do that. Or not. Their lives are his to command! Gods, he's _dreamed _of a rush like this, to feel it shimmer out to his fingertips and hum in the back of his skull; he feels like he could jump over the crumbling ruins of the blazing forge with a single leap, and never feel the flames.

"Dragons are totally cheating," he declares. Rrrrgh – remembering the shock and the outrage of _tame _dragons chasing his sailors off their longships and setting their sails on fire still makes Dagur want to strangle something. But he's found just the right revenge, hasn't he? "So we're gonna cheat even better! Take 'em all and make 'em fight for us, before you turn them into stupid pets!"

Only a _girl _would turn around and take something that was, uh, _attacking her people_ just a couple months ago and fuss over it like a tiny baby.

When Dagur dreams of dragons obeying him, it's the _cool_ ones, like the Skrill he's still going to catch one day, or the Night Fury Grimmel's probably not going to bring back to him, much as Dagur hates to admit it. But Berk's common lot will do, especially because it's really going to upset Astrid.

Serves her right.

"And then," Dagur bellows, practically spitting with frustration, "you're gonna take me to where _my tribe_ and that –" A thousand curses, each fouler than the next, choke in his throat, and all he manages to come out with is, "– black-haired _thief_ have run off to like traitors. They're _mine!_ They don't get to just _leave_!"

He still doesn't understand what happened there. He's never even heard of a whole tribe picking up and vanishing. Maybe they'd all gone crazy all at once. They're Berserkers, after all, even if they're really bad at it. Crazy kind of runs in the tribe.

"Fair's fair, right?" Dagur laughs hysterically, knuckles popping around the hilt of his sword. "A tribe for a tribe. We can trade! Don't bother stalling, 'cause I know you will. Weak little sentimental _girl_," he mutters furiously. What's he gotta do to get a reaction?

If someone stood out in the open and yelled stuff like this at _him_, he'd already have charged them with a club, the better to break every bone in their hands and make them take it all back. And if Astrid's nothing else – she's very little else, next to him – she's proud. Totally stuck-up. Thinks she's all that.

So where is she?

"Always fussing over those idiot friends of yours…" he goes on, but as the rush of a successful ambush simmers back into that churning, snapping gyre of frustration, tearing around in his chest, Dagur starts to actually look at what he's seeing. Where are those idiots, anyway? Those creepy twins and that Snotthing guy can't keep their mouths shut with a gag and a lid over their heads.

"…and your dragons…"

Seriously, where are those dragons that do as they're told? Dagur hasn't seen anything bigger than a Terror all day.

"…so of course you're gonna trade," he finishes, but with none of the confidence he'd started with.

He doesn't get the chance to figure it out before the wolf warrior standing beside him, who's stepped up to his side like a bodyguard, raises a longbow, draws it back all the way, and points it straight into the crowd.

Everyone, Berkian and Úlfurstríðsmaður and Berserker chief, seems to draw in a breath at once as the bowstring hums.

"Waste to shout," Akarp grumbles in his thick accent. Their language isn't too different from the one Dagur speaks, but they're not singing grand epics together. "She do as told. Or…"

Right next to Dagur's ear, the bowstring hums with lethal tension. It's a big bow, easily half the Berserker chief's height, solid and strong, and the arrow at full draw is razor-sharp. He's heard Akarp brag many times that he never misses a shot – the archer can shoot seagulls out of the air – but the wolf warrior doesn't have to aim. He doesn't care who he hits.

Pinned beneath the point of the arrow, the space between it and her meaningless, the dirt-blonde girl in the arrow's way by chance freezes, her round face draining pale like there's a hole in her already. And there will be: Dagur can already see it. It'll go straight through her and that ragged blanket cloak she's wearing, nowhere near long enough to reach the dusty wool socks reaching up from her feet. It'll probably go through whoever's unlucky enough to be behind her, and quite possibly one more person behind that, unless it hits a bone somewhere. People have a lot of bones, Dagur knows – they all break, he's broken quite a few of his own over his years of battle – but there's so much wet flesh in there too…

Instinctively, Dagur expects the Berkians to do the smart thing. To pull away, and take themselves out of the arrow's path.

He really doesn't know why he's so surprised when they don't.

Step by step, as if they'd practiced it, the crowd of Vikings closes in around Akarp's would-be victim, putting their own bodies in the way.

Some of them wear armor, hurriedly thrown on as the wolf warriors smashed into their neighbors' homes. Most of them don't; the hardest thing about them is the iron-tough expression in their eyes, denying Akarp his kill.

"No," says the man who stands before them all, his broad chest not two arrows' length from the deadly point.

_No. _Just that. But with such confidence, such _authority_, that Akarp lowers his bow in the face of nothing more than a level glare from that stone face.

A moment before, Dagur had almost been impressed with the Berkians. At least they understand loyalty. And he didn't really want that girl dead – she was just a girl, and not even the one Dagur would give almost anything to see beaten, to force her to admit that he was stronger and smarter and fiercer and, hells, let's throw in "better-looking" while he's at it.

"_You_ –" Dagur starts, rage and hatred bubbling up in his throat, boiling over in an almost wordless snarl. Gods, if he can't have Astrid to humiliate, Stoick would be almost as good.

_Stoick_. That sanctimonious, stone-faced giant – Dagur could grow as tall as a tree and Stoick of Berk would still find a way to look down on him, like he's _actually_ all the perfect warrior Viking chief that Oswald had spoken of with such slobbering _admiration_ in his voice, always pointing Dagur at him as an _example_. Perfectly honorable, the way his soft-hearted father had told it; perfectly brave, perfectly fair – and Dagur knew _that _was a lie, Stoick _always _took Astrid's side even when the brat had clearly started some brawl – perfectly this, perfectly that, huh, probably perfectly _dressed_, too, but Dagur had stopped listening years before.

So much for that; Stoick looks like someone's hauled him through a haystack and then left him to bake in the sun, and Dagur's only sorry it hadn't been him doing the dragging.

What he would have said, he doesn't get to find out.

"You stupid child," rumbles Stoick the Vast, cold and clear and loud enough that everyone _has _to listen, and Dagur's mind goes white with rage, his tongue tying itself into a furious knot as Stoick _just keeps talking –_

"This is what you think a chief is?" Stoick demands. "A braggart who gets thugs to tear children and grandmothers from their beds, for revenge? A brawler who started so many fights he couldn't win, he had to slink off and whine for help to stone killers who don't give a damn about you or your stupid grudge?"

Like a looming statue with a beard, Stoick's face locks down into cold derision to match his voice. "Better watch your back, boy," he warns. "I knew their master, and the moment you stop being useful – _good dog!_" he adds mockingly, "– they'll throw you overboard and leave you to swim home."

Dagur clenches his hands into fists, feeling old salt gritting beneath his nails, even as Stoick's expression darkens, and he steps forward, just a pace. Just a pace, but it's all Dagur can do not to take that same pace away. Or maybe fly straight at him, punch him down and shut him up – he's caught between the two, and Stoick skewers him there like a lizard under a knife.

"Astrid's worth three dozen of you, boy, and all three dozen would be too busy kicking each other in the teeth to lay a finger on her! Gods, if your father had had half a spine, he'd have strangled you behind the shed the day you took that boy's hand off –"

"I didn't!" Dagur blurts out, reflexively scrambling to denial, his tongue tripping over itself as the rest of him reels in shock. How could Stoick _know?_ It's an old memory, laced with guilt he's rarely felt since. He'd been just a kid. "I was just playing, anyway, and that brat hit me! He deserved it! And I didn't!"

Sure, the brat had lost the hand in the end, because Dagur had made enough of a mess of it that their healer had been forced to take off the rest, but hey, every warrior in the Archipelago has scars, and a lot of them are missing bits anyway – look at Stoick's grumpy blacksmith! Barely anything of him left, although probably enough of him to get Tornby back for burning down his forge.

And he'd been sorry, anyway. Oswald had made him listen to the kid scream…and wait, is _that _how Stoick knows? Had Oswald come here so many times asking Stoick for help…about _him?_ His own son? Stoick doesn't even have a kid, what does he know –

No, wait.

Stoick does, doesn't he? Not that wild dragon-creature the creepy twins had tried to spin him a tale about, but the girl he'd made his heir.

Even _Oswald _had thought Stoick knew how to be a better father? Even _Dagur's own father_ had preferred that muddy little girl?

Gods, _everyone_'s against him! Dagur's always known it, but it burns like forge-hot iron pressed against his teeth to _know_.

And outside the deafening howl of rage climbing up Dagur's throat with a knife in each hand, carving out grips as it goes, Stoick's still talking, disgust in his eyes. "– but here you are, tracking someone else's filth all over my village, yapping like a turnspit dog that thinks it's a dragon. Little fool," he snorts. "You think fear's the same as respect?"

"It'll do," Dagur hisses, still choking on his scream.

He wants to tear both eyes out of Stoick's _skull_ for the way they roll, but somehow Dagur's too mad to move. "I've seen mad dogs, boy," the old chief sneers, looming over him like nothing's ever changed, like Dagur's still a kid and not a warrior and a chief and a conqueror. "And I've stepped wide around 'em, sure. But no one follows a mad dog 'cause they think it's going somewhere glorious. They're just watching their chance to put an axe through its neck."

The words punch through Dagur like an arrow from Akarp's bow. Where's the wolf warrior when Dagur actually needs him, huh? One shot, and Stoick shuts up for good. One shot, and Berk's old chief stops carving into the fear Dagur's crushed down and sat on and buried since he was old enough to know he was supposed to be the chief someday. That unless he's the scariest, the meanest, the fiercest, the toughest, the most unpredictable…

…one day, his people will figure out that he doesn't really know what he's doing.

And there are always more of them then there are of him.

But no, the archer's slunk away somewhere – there's Stoick's _dog_! – and left Dagur alone after all, under the torchlight.

Stoick says, scornfully, "You don't know the first thing about being a real chief. Chiefs do the _work_, boy! We put our people before ourselves, and we fight for them, not for ourselves. I bet you've never lost a wink of sleep worrying about how your tribe was going to get through another winter, or fed one of your own from your plate when you were hungry. I bet you've never held someone's hand while they grieved, or stopped to keep a child from falling off a wall."

Stoick would win his bet, but Dagur would rather pull out his own tongue than admit it. Or Stoick's tongue, for preference. "Get to the point, old man, or shut up!" is all he manages.

"No, you think it's all about you, and you'll scream at the sunset and break anything in your path to prove it – as long as no one fights _back_, of course, and then you'll run like the bully you are. Do you really think anyone's impressed? You don't look after your own, and you don't win the fights you pick, and then you scream that it's not fair. Like fair's even a thing!"

More grey in his beard than red, even in the firelight and the red haze falling over Dagur's eyes, and sallow like a dead fish, and his gaze slipping to the side to fix on nothing at all and smile at it – Dagur fights with himself not to look and wins. And still Stoick's voice is the sort of thunder-god rumble Dagur would give anything to have. So that's the secret, then, the voice? Of course fair's not a thing – not for _him_, anyway!

"And you wonder why they left you? Barely a wink and a wave from Astrid and that clever friend of hers, and they were piling all over each other to get away. She reached out, and she did it with her hands open, not to take but to _offer_, when she didn't have to, and the people you abandoned are better for it." The old chief actually spits in the dirt before him. "That's the sort of chief you'll never be, _boy_. I wouldn't go aboard a fishing ketch with you in command."

Stoick laughs, short and dismissive, nothing like the wild, desperate sound beating between Dagur's ears, trying to drown out the words being thrown at him like sling stones in front of all the people who should be his _captives_, dammit, who he defeated, who he could have killed if he wanted! "You're looking for Astrid? You can't even get that right, can you? Astrid's not _here_, you fool."

_No, no, no, no, no, no, no_ – Dagur can see his whole clever plan collapse around him. What's the point, if the one person he needs to beat isn't even here? She's _gone?_ She left her precious island and her people she claims to be such a good chief to and she –

"What? That coward!" Dagur yells, sputtering. If he just keeps kicking, he's gotta find the ground eventually, and then he'll find his balance again, and he'll find some way to salvage this. "You mean she ran away? Ha! Hahahahahahaha!" He laughs until he can't breathe anymore, as wild and mad as he possibly can – _mad dog_, Stoick called him? Well, this one bites!

"Oh, that's rich! She left you, your precious girl chief, with your enemies all around you and even at your backs, and you call her worthy? How stupid are you? She left you unguarded," he shouts, his hands in fists, fury snatching him up and washing him away like a storm wave, shattering even stone, and stone-faced old men, too! "And I beat you! And if she ever dares show her face again, if she wants to see any of _you_ again, she's going to have to beg me!"

That's justice, right? A tribe stolen for a tribe taken? That's fair.

Stoick looks him in the eye. "Beaten?" is all he says. "I don't feel beaten."

And for some reason, he looks back over his shoulder at Berk's Vikings gathered behind him, unarmed and cornered and dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night, herded into a group while raiders break into their storehouses and throw knives at chickens and take what they want.

"Anyone else feel beaten?"

And Berk's Vikings fold their arms and shake their heads and growl. They stand tall despite the weapons pointed at them, and they just…_refuse to lose._

The sight makes Dagur's head hurt. Nothing here makes sense. Astrid is gone and the middle of his ambush has fallen out and these stupid people won't even admit that they've _lost?_

"Feel?" Dagur shouts, baffled and furious. "You _are_ beaten! Berk is _taken!_ You've _lost!_"

He buries his hands in his red hair and pulls on it. Huh. Good to be able to do that again. Maybe he won't burn it all off again anytime soon. Or rip out handfuls, because even for him, that had hurt.

"You. Are. All. Stupid!" he screams. "Useless stubborn idiots – none of you _matter!_ Why am I even talking to you?" He swings around and points to everyone just standing around, Hok and Loberod and Harlosa and Gedved and a couple more he can't remember the names of. "You lot, get these losers out of here! Lock them up in there," he orders before anyone can get slaughtery ideas, pointing to the Great Hall. It's a heavy, dark shadow in the midnight outside the light of the battle torches, but Dagur doesn't have to see it to feel it looming over him. "Don't let them out. And if anyone tries to leave?"

He'll show them _beaten_.

"Burn it down. Astrid can come home to ashes."

_The way I did,_ he doesn't say. It's not like he'd particularly liked the place, but Berserker Island was – is – _his_. The memory of coming home in the middle of winter, his limping ships finally making it back to what should have been safe harbor after he'd finally given up chasing after the Skrill – how do you track a flying dragon anyway? If only he'd found that weird guy Grimmel sooner – is bitter in his gut. It tastes like seaweed with the salt still on it because he was so _hungry_ and they hadn't put into port for weeks.

He'd stood there in a deserted, gutted village, listening to the wind howl, and screamed loud enough to drown out the winter. The fields beyond the town, which he sort of understands feed him, were barren and empty, unturned for the spring. They'd even stolen the _dishes_.

And he'd sworn vengeance before every god he could think of, and any demons that might be listening.

"Tell those useless butt-sitters out there they can get lost," Dagur snaps at Morud, jabbing a thumb out to sea. "And get the hauler ships into dock, and if they argue with you, tell them that the man Grimmel the Grisly put in charge did their work _for _them." And if they keep arguing, Morud is bigger than two of Stoick put together, so there. No one's sure how many wolves are in _his _cloak. Rumor has it he'd taken out a whole pack.

With all the satisfaction he can muster, as Berk's people are marched away, Dagur declares, "Berk, and every dragon on it, is ours."

Sure, he doesn't see any of them here, but he knows Berk has dragons. That's why they're here. The army to take them, and Dagur to take them _away._

Throwing rocks? Starving out _Vikings?_ Vikings know how to starve. Dagur could have told them how stupid a strategy that was, if any of those quarreling captains and little crew chiefs had listened.

Sneaking around setting traps and hunting with dragonroot, like they were scared to be spotted? That could take forever.

"Send the deadweight away," he adds to Alghult, who's prowled up beside his warrior.

The Úlfurstríðsmaður chieftain smirks. "Don't need 'em no more?"

"Like all hells we do. We've won already. If they're not set up to transport dragons –" Not all the ships are, Dagur had found as he moved from ship to ship trying to find someone as bored as he was, who was ready to act rather than wait. Not all of them are protected against fire, and the ones that are move slow, and need fighters to escort them. "– they can go home, or wherever. I've got this."

Doesn't he?

"Damn right, I've got this," Dagur mutters to himself, where no one else can hear. He and his men have taken Berk – no one's _ever_ taken Berk, he's going to get the epic saga he's dreamed of for that alone, once he gets his skalds back!

And now it's theirs to raid, as it should be. Charge and smash and grab, and move on with the smoking ruins in your wake. That's the Viking way!

Not whatever boring crap Astrid's peddling, wherever she is.

No, Grimmel promised him an army, and all the glory he could fight for, and vengeance, and Dagur's going to have them all. Where is the man, anyway? Still chasing dragons? Good riddance.

* * *

Dagur stomps away, yelling orders and laughing, shaking his sword at the sky.

He misses the man on the approach path to the village, stone-still and camouflaged. Even in the day, he would be hidden: his life has depended on it, many times. He blends into the surrounding forest with the ease of long experience, so that the Terrible Terror on his shoulder, its tail wound around his neck, crouched low and whimpering, might just be perching on a branch.

And anyway, the man vanishes into Berk's forest, back to his crew, long before Dagur or any of his wolf warriors looks his way.

* * *

"Stop! _Stop!_" Grimmel roars, cursing all dragons as the ship lurches around him, seawater surging over his feet, the current nearly strong enough to knock him down. He slams the knife he'd been using to press juice from a nightshade root, one of his favorite poisons, into the bulkhead as he staggers, hauling himself up with its bite.

The single lantern in the hallway swings wildly, and his ship's hold rings with the crashes of crates and barrels and tied-up net wraps falling, the ice-sharp shattering of fragile vials as splinters of wood spray into them, a deeper ceramic smash of the brew-pot he'd been using just moments before, tumbling to its doom. That, at least, Grimmel can't regret; the burn on the back of his hand where it crashed into him _will _scar; one day he really must get another pair of good gloves. Dragon blood ruined the last pair, just before he'd heard a wild tale of a Night Fury with a man riding it.

He can feel the dead patch of flesh where he'll either never feel again, or he'll feel a lot very soon now, a scar to match the spider's web of reddened, swollen lines scratched into his wrist, despite the wrap and the wound cleanser – _damn _that Fury boy. As rare as the thing is, as far as it had come over trade routes that may as well end beyond the sky, he would have broken the brewer for harming him.

Just like he'll _gut _those godsdamned Deathgrippers that have _run his ship into a rock!_

Behind him, he can hear the deadly scrape of other stones, carving through the thin layer of barnacles his ship's keel wears, slicing through wood like flesh, sharp teeth biting for the empty air of the hold to let all the water in. And still, the ship keeps going, pitching around him as the stupid creatures in harness pull blindly, obedient to the impulse and the command that's driving them, heedless of the damage they're trailing behind.

That's dragons for you.

The sharp stink and burning sting of a dozen different mixtures wash away into the bilge-water stench of the sea, and Grimmel stumbles through it with a steady flow of curses falling from his lips, damning all dragons and his beasts in particular, the heaviness of his leather mantle as it soaks through, stones and ships, and the gut-darkness that swallows the passageway whole as the lantern drowns. And the foolishness of men, too, for if people were less tedious, maybe Grimmel would be able to bear having some of them with him, to watch the dumb beasts pulling his ship when he'd gone below for only a little while.

What seems like an age later, but must have been only moments, his groping hands fall on the shuddering rungs of the broad ladder, built strong enough for dragons, and certainly sturdy enough to survive a shipwreck. Grimmel leaves it out of his curses for now, scrambling up it even as he's thrown to the side again, his shoulder cracking painfully against the wood.

He emerges into the fading daylight of the evening he left, but a much different scene than he remembers. The supplies he keeps boxed up and stored on the deck have burst from their bindings, thrown to the ship's stern in a crashed-down heap, pounded cakes of meat and berry and grain smeared into the tar by the heavy chains ready for their captives, living or dead. A cask of fresh water, broken open, spills its precious contents across the deck like blood. The tiller is still lashed into place, but it's heaving at the rope. A flask of lantern-oil has tipped over; small flames flicker from the lantern that was thrown back into it from the prow, pale as little stars and as useful. Nowhere near the water that might put it out, of course –!

Below, two of his Deathgrippers stand rapt and rigid, staring at the horizon with their tails arced above their upturned noses, tusks scything towards the knife-thin moon just risen.

Above, at the ends of heavy chains bolted deep into the ship's bones, the other two fly relentlessly, tugging at the harnesses Grimmel had bound them into, ducking and diving, following some scent on the wind.

"_Stupid beasts!_" Grimmel screams at them, losing his footing briefly as one of them pulls ahead and drags the ship with it. Its fellow flies harder to catch up. "_Stop! I said stop!_"

They don't listen, because dragons are stupid, and Deathgrippers are particularly stubborn once they've got a scent in their ugly nostrils and a trail to follow. On other days, Grimmel could almost like that about them. It's the closest thing any dragon has to a virtue, and he knows the value of persistence. That's the secret weapon of how he hunts, after all.

To keep going. To never, ever stop.

But even he isn't stubborn enough to throw himself onto a blade and keep going, which is what the mindless lumps up there have just done!

"Stop! _Hold,_ I tell you!" he shouts up at them. Ahead, he can hear a roar like an enormous waterfall, as if he stood beneath the cascade already. He has no idea how – the ocean is no mountain stream to throw him over some cliff by surprise – but he has no desire to find out.

Fire and roar and the bone-chilling feeling of a knife scoring along his ship's belly, spilling its guts into the sea – all that can wait. Grimmel sets them all aside with cold determination, each in its place. He'll deal with them later.

Right now, all he needs is the bow strapped to the mast where it's so easy to grab as he climbs out of the hold – Grimmel has lived aboard this ship long enough to have everything just where he wants it – and the handful of arrows stewing point-down in the punch-lidded box he'd built to contain the tranquilizer he mixed two days ago. Although the long-tipped prod he snatches up on his way, striking it against the roots of his Deathgrippers' tusks to push them aside, doesn't hurt.

Well, it doesn't hurt _him._

"Nose-brained beasts," Grimmel mutters, dropping to one knee and bracing his crossbow against the railing, letting himself breathe into the movements of the ship even if it feels like gasping for air, tracking his target with the frozen focus he's cultivated all his hunter's life. "When I say stop, creature –"

He fires.

They're just one more tool, after all, and when a tool isn't working…when it's turned on him…

"– you _stop_."

The arrow flies true as he'd known it would, and Grimmel smiles with absolute satisfaction, seeing the bolt sink into the heavy-set dragon's hindleg.

The bloody taste of striking a blow against the creatures he hates floods into his mouth, sweet as honey after the numbness of three drops of poison in his drink, something to lick down and feel coating his throat as he swallows. He'll use these beasts, because he's willing to get his hands dirty to make a cleaner world, and for the delicious irony of using dragons that obey to hunt down those that still think they're safe up there in the sky, like wings and fire make them any more than birds that have got above themselves.

But one day – even if there are dragons still left in the world, one day when he's too old or crippled or poisoned to hunt, which is to say to _live_ – he means to kill these creatures, or whatever ones have replaced them, even if he has to spend his last breath doing it. And that would be worth it, to die with a dragon's blood on his hands. He'll have no songs like some warriors boast of; men will speak of him in whispers. But they'll say he never stopped making the world _right._

The wounded Deathgripper falters, wings slowing, sinking erratically in the air, and Grimmel smirks at it, drawing another arrow from the pile dropped at his feet. He draws, breathes, aims, and looses; the second hauler cries out mournfully, cheated of its pursuit, and drops from the sky.

"Finally," Grimmel mutters, leaving them to wallow in the air and paddle their way back to the ship, injured beasts fleeing for the deceptive safety of the ship and their ruined holding pen. He ignores their cries of pain and bellows of confusion as they claw at their scales and the arrows there. They'll live, assuming they don't crash into the ocean.

The poison on those arrows isn't lethal – why would it be? He's on the trail of a Night Fury, where he belongs, and those, Grimmel the Grisly prefers to kill up close. How else is he supposed to see that too-clever light in their eyes go out, and know the balance has tipped a little further in mankind's favor? Besides, Deathgrippers are bigger, stockier, built less like hawks and more like oxen; the sedative will make them dizzy, but not knock them out. He knows how to calibrate a poison. And they'd be difficult to replace at this point. This lot were hard-won, and he's far from their species' range, far out here in the middle of nowhere.

But as he turns away, he can feel that the ship isn't slowing, even with no dragons hauling it.

If anything, it's speeding up.

"That can't be right," Grimmel snarls, hand clenching around his crossbow's stock. "What did you fool creatures do? If you've run me into a current…"

He wedges the bow between two crates that won't be moving in any hurry – they're weighted down with lead leaders for the flying nets, although the catapults fore and aft look like they'll need a good going-over before Grimmel relies on them anytime soon – and runs for the mast, dodging past cringing Deathgrippers and one wing of his flight carrier, pulled from its ties but undamaged. Catching hold of the grips riveted into the mast, he climbs, dodging behind the furled sail he didn't need to bother about tending, with dragons to haul –

At the very top, he twists around, and stares, wondering where his spyglass has gone.

The curse that tears itself from his mouth is so old he didn't think he still knew it, a curse for a flood that turned brackish crop fields to ponds, for gods that clearly hated them in particular, that had driven them out and left them on the muddy line between land and sea.

"What _is _that?" Grimmel demands of no one at all.

He's heard a thousand tavern tales of the end of the world, the place where the ocean stops, where a ship sailing over it like a mug off the edge of a table will fall forever, nothing but the dark to swallow it and its crew whole. He's never believed in it. And yet, for an instant, Grimmel almost believes now.

Sharp rocks jut up from the lip of it, rearing out of the waves crashing against them, in scattered ranks out from – Grimmel can't believe it. There's a hole in the ocean. So wide, it almost seems to bite into the horizon, night sky turning to the pit-blackness of oblivion, and it gulps the water down, pulling all things towards it.

"Not me, you don't!" Grimmel shouts at it, and shoves away the hole in the pit of his stomach, opening to match. He'll deal with _that_ later, too. The important thing is, as always, not to be eaten; everything else is secondary.

The next few minutes are a blur of motion he simply doesn't have time to remember, of frantically untangling the hauler harnesses from the moaning, wounded Deathgrippers slumping to the deck and trying to bite at the arrows in their sides, lashing those same harnesses around the fresh ones, and urging the replacement two into the air with curses and sharp slaps from the prod. These ones, he doesn't order "Track!"

These ones, he just says, "Fly!"

They're a blur of chains beneath his hands as he pulls desperately at the paid-out leash, throwing all his weight to turn one stupider-than-usual tracker dragon that still wants to follow its nose into the pit. They're muttered oaths and howled imprecations against all dragons, and snarled complaints about how much he'd like a second pair of hands right now.

Unfortunately, he really is out in the middle of nowhere, and the nearest pair of hands probably belong to that mad beast-creature of a Fury-possessed boy, who _doesn't count_. Grimmel would happily let this ship sink, if he had that boy and his claw-gloved hands here, the latter to be removed from their body and the former to be removed from the world.

The thought gives him the strength to chop the tiller loose from its dead man's cord and haul it around, though it takes everything he can muster, turning the ship broadside on to the current. He is _not _going out before he's put paid to that _abomination!_

Slowly, the ship heels over, tilting and creaking like a scream, and Grimmel holds on like inevitable death as it heaves, and staggers, and lists, and strikes something with a dull, grinding _thud_.

And stops.

Waves wash against its hull, Deathgrippers hesitate and falter at the suddenly heavier weight behind them, and Grimmel feels the grit of a sandbank at lowering tide between his teeth as surely as if he'd opened his mouth and taken a bite.

They're aground.

To port, the cheated waterfall roars, its voice slackening.

* * *

"Well, this is…lovely," Grimmel says to himself, laying the sarcasm on thick enough to eat. The damage looks no better with the sun.

Half the lower deck is flooded, not with water but with wet, filthy sand, thick black and dead grey, stinking of the bottom of the sea and things that were never meant to breathe air. Most of his carefully acquired, patiently hoarded supplies are ruined, lost beneath the flood of silt, seaweed, and dying seabed creatures. A few vials of Deathgripper venom have survived, and Grimmel hurriedly tucks them away into one of his mantle's pockets. As much as he hates his drugged-stupid dragons right now, he might need them still.

"And just how am I supposed to put this ship back together before the tide comes back, hm?" he asks himself. Years of practice keep the rage in his voice down; anyone who's dealt with him for very long would recognize the lightness in his tone as a warning as clear as a Scauldron's crop swelling. "I'd be all day just digging in to see how bad the hole is, and what am I to patch it with? No dry land to haul it up upon, and I think there's been quite enough pulling for one day." He huffs indignantly. "Right into a bloody ridge."

He wipes his hands carefully clean against his leather mantle, unable to stop his mind from skipping from one rage to another. Time is a candle burning down, a wind smoothing tracks clean, a string unraveling to fibers, a brew boiling away. The longer he spends grounded here, the fainter the scent-trail his Deathgrippers were tracking grows. They're keen scent trackers – "Too keen, sometimes," he grumbles to himself – but not magic.

Gritting his teeth and holding a sleeve over his nose to block out the stench of old muck, he retreats to the fresher air of the deck. Stepping past his huddled dragons, noting only the flicker of hunger in their eyes, not for food but for the venom drained from them, vials clinking gently against each other in his pocket, Grimmel paces across the boards of the deck wondering if he'll have to tear them up to fix the hull. "Is that even possible, I wonder?"

His steps take him over to the rail, and to a perplexing sight.

The hole in the ocean has vanished, replaced by a low-lying island, nothing upon it but mud and stones as far as the eye can see. A shadowed darkness inland might be the pit, and despite himself, Grimmel can't help but wonder. "That's odd," he muses, because screaming and hitting his dumb dragons won't get him anywhere. "Now, why did you lot lead me here so determinedly? Those Furies and their…" Even to himself, the word chokes in his throat. "_pet_ can't be here, can they? There was nothing of that island left."

He taps his fingers against the railing. "Now, there are sea-dragons big enough to seem an island. A Bewilderbeast, sunning itself amidst the waves. A Foreverwing rising, or a Fastitocalon – now that would be a pretty kill! But neither of them create maelstroms, and there's never been a Submaripper grown that big."

Briefly, he entertains the notion that maybe no one's come back to tell stories of a Submaripper that size, and dismisses it. He has a Night Fury to kill. "But again, why here?"

The Deathgrippers don't answer – they just cower in their heap against the far side of the ship, looking at him with what almost could be resentment, if dragons felt anything that deep. "Oh, be quiet," Grimmel snaps at one as it whines. "We'll be back on the trail soon enough."

He can't stop wondering, though, and between his own curiosity and the frustration of the broken ship, as heavy as if it hung from his neck, he can't resist going to see.

* * *

"Ah," says Grimmel, refusing to let his body reel while his mind, through great effort, takes the step back his feet can't afford to. "I've always known I'd be willing to chase a Night Fury over the edge of the world." He laughs, dizzy and delighted and seething. "I just didn't think it would be so…literal."

He's been up in the air before, far away from the breath of dead things, like a marsh as stagnant as its people, that breathes all around him here. He's looked down, and cut dead his fear of falling as a _useless_ relic from a boy with his feet in the mud. But below – ah, below…

Just beyond his feet, there's a pit as deep as the sky, far too big to look at all at once. It falls away into darkness, past the rock ledges that must be longer than Drago's flagship, but look like narrow handholds against the gaping _enormity_ of the pit. Small, tumbling streams of seawater still drain into it, and shrieking, aggrieved seagulls flutter around its edges, diving at tiny things clinging to the stones, exposed as the tide ebbed.

Grimmel refuses to feel like one of them. He's dropped to his knees only to peer over the edge more safely; once again, he rues not having those gloves. Slime squelches beneath his hands.

Impulsively, he pries loose a smaller rock and sends it flying into the abyss. It vanishes without even a clatter, despite crashing against a few other protruding rocks further down. He loses sight of it almost at once.

"What is this?" Grimmel asks himself, teeth gritted with vertigo and frustrated rage. "Is this where you've gone, my Furies? Is this where you've hidden yourselves and your mongrel? Are you hiding down there somewhere, hoping I'll pass you by? That I'll lose your trail beneath the weight of water and stone? Clever things!" he sneers mockingly, not meaning a word.

"_Furies_. You're the worst of them all, thinking you're so clever – it never _works_!" he shouts into the pit. "I'll always find you! You think this'll stop me?"

The chasm doesn't even _echo_. It's unnerving.

Grimmel hates mud, and he hates marshes, and he hates that his tracks had vanished behind him as he made his way from sandbar to stone to flooded land to stone again. He hates the indifferent yawn of the pit.

But he _loves_ a challenge.

"I don't stop for anything," he sneers at the pit and the fugitive dragons who must be hiding down there – why else would his single-minded, half-witted trackers have borne down on it so determinedly? Once they've got the scent, they're almost unstoppable. Grimmel's seen them throw themselves against a mountainside, trying to wedge themselves into a narrow tunnel where his prey had fled.

"That's why I'm the best."

Broken leg? He'd bound it back up and kept going. Snow higher than his head? He'd woven snowshoes for himself, and he'd kept going. The sun turning black above him, while the hunting tribe he'd fallen in with screamed and prayed for the world not to end just yet? He'd kept his eyes down and _kept going_. He's hunted dragons for hundreds of leagues, across land and sea, and he's never, ever stopped.

He curses the day he'd thought himself _done_, that he'd never see another Night Fury, and decided that was enough. The muck seeping into his skin is nothing, next to the crawling disgust of knowing he's laid eyes on a Fury and it almost got away.

"It won't," Grimmel mutters, a vow. "They never have." That was how he'd killed his first Fury, long ago. He'd wounded it in an ambush, and then chased it, hanging back. Eventually, it had thought it was safe, and it had collapsed, exhausted.

Grimmel had given it one delicious moment to wake and see the sword come down.

Other people turn back. They drive away a dragon, and they call it a victory.

"Not me," Grimmel says. "Not ever. You're down there? I can follow you, _Toothless!_"

Not for a moment would he consider climbing down there, he dismisses immediately; the tide would return and throw him into the abyss before he'd run out a single line. And he can't sit up here and wait his fleeing Furies out; a dozen bowshots wouldn't cover the mouth of the pit, he judges. And he can't pursue them further, he admits reluctantly, should they emerge and race for the horizon. His ship may never move again.

"So I take the fight to you," he says to the pit and his prey. "I'm not stupid enough to chase you into a cave, whatever hollow you're crouching in down there. Wicked things in the dark, you are, and I can't count on the Deathgrippers, in some narrow corner. But I don't have to climb, do I? And I don't have to follow you into the dark."

Grimmel smiles, wide and satisfied, the frustration of a chase thwarted spooling out into the savage joy of a chase transformed.

"_Dragons_. One pair of wings, and you think you're the kings of the world," he snorts. "I've got four to answer you, my Fury, and if my beasts know nothing else, I think they've proven they know how to track and how to haul."

He laughs. "I don't need to fix my ship, do I? I just need my flight carrier. What, you think I can't salvage enough to mix that lure again?" He grins, pushing up back to his feet, and turning to make his way back to his ship with the joy of the hunt back in his step and a sing-song challenge sinking down into the pit.

"Bet your life?"

* * *

_To be continued._


	17. Chapter 17

_**Freefall**_**, Part Seventeen**

Gazing down into the dark waters, Hiccup growls _frustration_ at the glimmering reflections of false stars. The water ripples as it flows past the sheer sides of the little island, fracturing the lights. Always moving, they never go anywhere, until one of the lights goes out.

_Where?_ he whistles, peering up at the vault of stone. Flat and dull, tinged _lonely_ and _uncertain,_ the question is not for the vanished spark.

Toothless' leaving had woken him, although he had not stirred until his dragon-heart and Shiver had gone, off to play by themselves in flight and to wander the limits of the caves.

To be left behind ached, but he had felt Toothless' _wanting _in the jump of his heartbeat, and so Hiccup had pretended. Toothless will come back to him – they are two-who-are-one, this is true and always-true.

But as soon as they were gone, he had risen restless, despite the many dragons sleeping all around. Instincts honed within dark winters urge him to sleep among the flock, to stay within their warmth and wait out the winter that weighs heavy on them all.

Instead, he had set his heart on a cave-mouth, high above across the lake. It is one among many, and nothing much special to look at, but to Hiccup, it could glow with the light of playful dragon-fire in a dark world, beckoning him _belonging_. Its mouth is only silent stone, but it whispered a promise of a way home, back to the world under the sky where _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ belong.

Hiccup has never been able to spend a full winter asleep within their home-nest, closed in beneath the shell of ice over the great meadows and the king's lake, like a hatchling dreaming in its egg. And for all its light and beauty, for all it contains wonders, Shiver's nest is a winter world.

Here, the caverns are warmed by the flock's heart-fires, but the distant passages he and Toothless have already ventured down breathe _cold_, like a path into snow piled deep on the ledges and peaks and valleys of the nest outside.

In winter, the king's flock does not leave their nest. The bravest, fiercest, quickest hunters venture out to strike down what prey they can find in hurried, anxious flights. But with their claws bloodied, and meat in their bellies to share, Hiccup's dragon-cousins race home to the safety of the caves.

In the depths of winter, their caves seem like everything, and the world beyond only a forgotten, dangerous emptiness.

Hiccup has survived more winters than he can remember by believing, with the bone-deep faith that has shaped his life, that the sun will return. He has followed like a star the knowledge that one day they will smell _spring_ on the wind, and then he and his Toothless-_half_ will fly freely again, racing the horizon and rejoicing under the open sky.

But these caves beneath the sea will never see a spring, or the warmth and light of the summer sun.

He cannot flee this winter world alone, though he would never leave without Toothless-_dearest-self_; the black void between waterfall and glowing caverns is too deep for him to cross. And nothing yet drives him away. There is still much to see here, if they are welcome. The delight of finding so many others Like Them is still strong.

Instead, Hiccup had dared himself to climb to the cave-mouth that leads _out_, just to look. Rapidly and readily, he had scrambled across thin ledges, bracing himself against protruding stones, digging his claws into cracks and weaving up a long cascade of smooth stone where water must have run once, but no more. For a time, the body-effort of it had burned away the anxieties that nipped at his flanks and the tearing feeling of _abandonment_.

Shiver's nest is a challenge for a dragon who cannot fly, but Hiccup has been moving across cliffs and crevasses all his life. Soon enough, he had come to a broad plateau like so many leaves stacked atop each other, their edges peeking out from beneath the next.

And the dragons there, stirring only to sneer at him, had turned him away.

The memory – of being picked up in a spike-backed dragon's forepaws and carried sharply back to the shore of the lake like a fussing hatchling, all his climbing undone in moments with a snort and a rolled eye – burns so fiercely that Hiccup lashes out _hurting_, smashing down a fan of sunrise-glowing mushrooms that shatter, their pieces scattered.

He digs his claws into the golden-green lichen coating a rock, tearing long scars down it. Beneath, the stone does not shine, and Hiccup snarls bitter _satisfaction_; at last he has found something _real _behind all the fanciful beauty.

Back on the shore, cast aside by the dragon already retreating, licking at the shallow wounds Hiccup had clawed into those grabbing paws, he had lowered his head and crouched in on himself. _Fear_ had crept across him like a claw tracing out his lines, _shame _cold and wet as ice, spreading through his body like blood. It had felt like _pfikingr_ paws against his scales, like cowering under the shadow of cage bars, like the _snap_ of pitiless metal bloody with death.

And the flock had stared so curiously, whining and whispering and chattering, the sounds _(click)-phuh, (click)-phuh, (click)-phuh _echoing back like so many disapproving snorts. Jump Slide had nudged _sympathy _against Hiccup's side; her nose is like Toothless' nose, or Hiccup might have pushed her away with claws.

Now, on the shadowed little island, _humiliation _seeps through Hiccup like seawater through sand, until all his signals scream with it. He is still more likely to howl than to weep, but the ocean inside him – _it should be fire!_ – prickles at the backs of his eyes like tiny thorns.

With a shuddering growl, Hiccup moves to sweep a fan of amber mushrooms into dust, but his anger is dampened by a whimpered cry of _loneliness_ so profound he can barely move. Like a hatchling abandoned, alone in a strange place, afraid even to cry out, Hiccup huddles in on himself, _despair _sweeping over him. He wants – he _needs_ – Toothless more fiercely and completely than he has in a long time.

Before, they were torn apart from each other by an enemy, and that was a _wrongness _Hiccup can barely dare to remember. It hurts to touch like a ragged wound. Perhaps it will never heal cleanly; perhaps the bright scar of it will always bleed. Against that, how could this be worse? Toothless who is his heart is happy and in no danger, and will return to him – he knows – and that is all Hiccup has ever needed.

And yet.

If Toothless had stayed, they could have gone to the way out together. They could have flown quick and clever and laughing, and shown the underside of their tail to Obnoxious and all the dragons lurking there, guarding something they do not even _want_. Toothless would have defended him.

But Toothless has gone away.

And always, lurking, is the knowledge that if he was _right_, he would not need defending. He would have wings of his own to fly dancing and sharp fangs to snap out and insist, blasting-fire to hold singing in his jaws. He would be too _big _to be carried like a rabbit killed with a single blow!

His claws and his wits and his dragon-self's fire and love have always been enough to fight their enemies together. How is Hiccup to fight those who should be their friends, and alone?

The fragments of mushroom, glowing faintly, sink beneath the water and are swept away. Distractedly, Hiccup wonders where they go. Deeper into the dark, he imagines, where there is no light at all. Maybe fish swim safely there, uneaten. Maybe fish have hidden caves where dragons cannot find them, where they flow past glowing stones and never miss the sun.

With a low sigh of _sad lonely not-like that-there anxious lonely small uncertain_, and a whimper of _where?_ for Toothless, who will surely know to find him here, Hiccup pads carefully through the small thicket of mushrooms spilling across the shadowed stone. He steps lightly through the clusters of night-green bubbles, glowing faintly from within, even though they look very satisfying to burst; Shiver had said they were not-to-touch, and others have said the same.

Trailing blue-purple fronds brush across his tangled mane and the coil of red-gold scales winding around his shoulder, and soft green spikes that are not quite like moss-balls shrink away as he passes. A few of the branching, pale mushrooms that are good-to-eat stand among them, untouched by hungry dragons.

Beyond, set into the high stone face of the other side of the island, the pits cradling the ashes of the dead wait. It is strange, but Hiccup finds that approaching them calms him. In the presence of those silent ashes, dragons once and dragons still, dead but not quitegone but at rest, he _must_ step more carefully, he _must _push away his anger and his hurt.

Their Lost One who was their close kin-cousin, and like their hatchling, sleeps here and will always. They brought it here to sleep in peace; Hiccup cannot bring it screams.

_You-here?_ Hiccup asks it softly, expecting no reply. He purrs _comfort_ to the dark of the pit, sitting back on his haunches, pawing at the air as if petting a hatchling quiet. _Good you here you safe us-together you ours us good guard protect safe here peace sleep happy you sad yes-too safe-though._

He hums a shapeless melody for the sleeping Lost One, laid down in his memories long before he can remember. The sounds mean only _peace_; perhaps he hums them also for _(click)-phuh_.

For now, he can think of the ones Like Them who were here before, who are here still, who sleep forever. No tracks scar the stone around the ash-pit, and he knows their Lost One is undisturbed.

That, at least, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have done well, and one day they will – they _will!_ – return to their king and show him the good thing they have done.

Right now, Hiccup longs for the strength of their Alpha's thoughts over his, powerful and clear inside his skull. Hiccup hates to be reminded how small he is, beside so many of his cousins, but beneath their Alpha's gaze he is _seen._

The shadowed island is quiet, even the echoes of Hiccup's half-hummed, unremembered lullaby fading. Despite the half-darkness, the dragon-feral can see that he is alone, wish otherwise as he might.

But as he stands guard beside the dead, a prickle of _awareness_ shudders down his spine, pebbling his skin beneath his scales. The world around him sharpens to vivid life as his heart races, readying him to leap and run.

Like all small dragons, Hiccup has been a predator, and he has been prey. He knows when he is being watched, even when he cannot see the eyes upon him.

Signaling _wary_, curling his claws in, he scans the little island, looking for the hiding place and the hunter waiting in ambush. Dismissed so recently, he does not whistle _curiosity_ – he snarls.

A moment passes silently, his challenge unanswered, and then an expanse of rock shifts. Grey-black stone becomes a familiar arch of back and shoulders, sketched out smaller and eerily smooth without spine-fins. He has too few ear-flaps around a broad face, but unlike the many who have swarmed around _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ eagerly, his are pinned back _unfriendly_.

One blue eye glares out of a swathe of black scales, sweeping down over his shoulder and foreleg, splattered across the white of his wings and flank.

Black Patch snarls _dislike_, and hisses _resentment_, _you here wrong you small bad not-want here you!_ He paws at the ground with just a flicker of _uncertainty_ shimmering across his white scales, but he sets his shoulders _determination_, and meets Hiccup's eyes _challenge._

_You?_ Hiccup whistles, puzzled. _You here why confusion me here yes that _– he glances at the pits where black dragons sleep – _mine-ours you?_

_I here,_ Hiccup signals _confidence_, _certain-sure yes here belong that-there me!_ Hiccup belongs here, he insists, turning his dark-scaled side to the trespassing Black Patch in evidence. This nest's rules are silly to judge dragons Like Them for their colors, when they can change their shades so varyingly, but Hiccup will not hesitate to use them to protect himself.

He chirrs _doubt_ for Patch's presence, but signals cautious _willing_ to have the other dragon here.

This is not _his _nest, and he does not belong to this flock. Here he has no right to push another from his place, nor duty to insist on rules he does not understand.

_Huh,_ Black Patch snorts at Hiccup. He mimics _doubt_ back to the dragon-feral, ear-flaps flicking _scorn_. He holds his head high, spreading his wings and standing tall, dominant and aggressive. _Look!_

Hiccup looks more closely for the small signals that betray a pounce or a blast of fire; everything about Black Patch howls _dislike _near to _loathing_. The dragon-pair have met so many of the flock here, been stared at and crouched to and poked with curious noses, been called _welcome_ to and invited to play. Those Like Them seem most eager, cooing _wonder_ over Toothless' black scales and chirping _delight _over Hiccup bounding beside them.

This dragon Like Them is as wary and hostile as any stranger, and Hiccup believes he knows why.

The dragon-feral steps backwards, just a bit, and crouches low.

He does not lower his eyes, but he bows _Alpha_.

At once, Black Patch stands even taller, his black-marked chest swelling, and Hiccup allows himself a small, barely-there purr of _satisfaction_ to have guessed right.

Stalking in a tight, angry circle, Black Patch growls _triumph_, and _pride_ enough to float on, and bares his teeth. _Yes!_ He crows _smug_, _me here big you down you small I fierce!_

Hiccup remembers the brief, bloodless fight on the shore of the lake with a flinch. The dragon-pair had not come here to fight with this flock's Alpha: Toothless had simply not understood that the dragon threatening to strike their Shiver-friend was the leader here. Besides, Hiccup has never met a dragon-king who enforces his rule with screams and blows. Alphas simply _command_, and are obeyed. An Alpha's will touches all.

(The eater of dragons was a monster, and no Alpha at all.)

Hiccup had hoped to make amends by acknowledging this flock's Alpha, but he is quickly disappointed.

_Why-there?_ Black Patch demands, flicking his nose towards the distant tunnel. _You you no fly you down why up why go? _He trembles with _indignation_, as if Hiccup had stolen a fish from beneath his nose and was crouching on a high ledge to eat it, not out of reach of a quick-spring jump, but too far away for Black Patch to chase and leave the rest of his catch unguarded. It is the shuddering _frustration _of one insulted, but unsure if he can do anything about it.

Taken aback, Hiccup whines _confusion_, crouching _apology._ He does not understand. _That?_ he asks, rearing up partway to look towards the plateau. The little dragon is careful to keep his head below Black Patch's._ That-there that yours that nest you?_

Perhaps that place is the Alpha's to sleep in, guarded by those he trusts most, but if so, Hiccup does not think much of them. Black Patch's friends are rude.

_No no no revulsion-disgust that-there that bad dangerous threat fear no no you no-go no-never must-not there bad danger-warning! _There are twitches of _panic_ in Black Patch's body, though he covers them with _scorn_.

Hiccup considers this, puzzled. _Fine-though_, he offers at last, _reassurance_, and explains, _Toothless-heart us we fly together-good-always safe good fly c'mon you look us fly!_ Perhaps Black Patch thinks he does not know about the great dark chasm beyond, and scolds him like a hatchling only because hatchlings can fall, before they learn the use of their wings. The Alpha must watch over all the dragons in his nest. Perhaps this Alpha means only to warn him of a danger.

Black-and-white scales flicker dark blood-red and angry fire-orange, snapping across his side and chest and pooling towards his jaws, _anger _bright and clear. _No!_ he commands again, snarl scrabbling towards a scream. _Not-understand why why you there go never-not must-not! I command! bad there bad danger bad bad no-there!_

His tail-tip flicks in tiny, barely-restrained movements; there are no lanky hares with black-tipped ears to chase here, and no riotous grass to rustle and warn away prey, but some instincts live in the bone. Sharply, Patch snaps his tail around, tailfins swatting downward in rebuke. _Why?_ he demands. _You small you-know must! No-go!_ _You there want yes? why?_

With a snarl of pure _frustration_, Hiccup rises nearly to his full height, standing above Black Patch and seeing _rage _flare in blue eyes quick as fire in dry leaves. How can he make this little Alpha understand? How can Black Patch _not _understand? How dare Black Patch forbid him to leave – this is not their home, and they are not his to command!

_Out!_ Hiccup cries, grasping for sounds to convey the longing pulling at his soul. Whining _longing_, _hunger _of the heart, he yelps and chatters the eager sounds of w_ant want want! Me go there good out-there out yes look look I go want up up up storm-warning…_ He knows Black Patch will not recognize that sound; there are no storms here, there is no _sky _to have storms in!

The dragon-feral turns his face up to the stone sky and squints his eyes half-closed as if there were bright sun to bask in, blinking _hello _to its fire._ Good very-much-so need yes certain-sure me go determined longing that-there I go yes need homesick…_

But it bares his throat to the fuming black-and-white dragon, and Hiccup drops to his usual crouch again, retreating to blunt the strike of daring to loom over an Alpha. That his movement takes him out of Black Patch's ready reach is very little comfort, in the face of blasting-fire and the powers that Alphas wield.

_Look, _Hiccup invites, crouching _conciliation_, pawing at the bare stone between them as if there were a fish there to offer and make amends with. He has no fish to share, and he will not roll and show his belly _surrender_ when he has done nothing truly wrong.

But he does have the little magic that is his, that Toothless alone among dragons shares a little of.

Hiccup sets charcoal to stone, and he draws, showing the world he knows in the hopes that the Alpha, at least, will see and understand.

There is darkness that way, yes, but beyond there is the sky!

He draws a horizon, purring _home_, and the waves that crash beneath it –

A flare of light at the side of his eyes, and Hiccup scrambles away as Black Patch blasts at the stone, turning all his drawings to ash.

_No!_ he repeats, fangs bared. _Must-not!_

Pacing wildly, Black Patch paws at his few ear-flaps and shakes himself roughly, but Hiccup sees the shudder he tries to hide. _Up up up up up_, the other dragon repeats, croaking _mockery _like a raven. He flicks his nose at the stone sky, _that_, snorts _no._

_Enough no-more that-there good true enough you stop down you stay yes urgent-important!_ Black Patch rears up, and slams his forepaws down on the black stone.

_This_, he signals. _This-here yes certain-sure no-more up up up no!_ And he whistles Hiccup's _out _– the ascending shriek of a dragon leaping from a cage – with _derision _squawking over it.

_No that_, Black Patch orders, slinking towards Hiccup with his head lowered _attack_ and _threat,_ fire in his throat, barely a disgusted glance aside for the burned-black drawing. _No no never must-not I command Alpha here yes I say! _He snarls the snapping-shut, choked-off sound of _silence!_

_That-there not-so denial refusal disbelief rejection certain-sure not-there NOT-SO! LIE!_ Black Patch declares, his fangs snapping out. Hiccup knows that sound in his bones, and it is a deep and terrible wrongness to have the threat, always before offered in his defense, aimed at _him._

_This-here this enough not-so! Alpha me yes me say! Down! You down! Obey!_

_Dangerous!_ the Alpha of the hidden nest names the drawing, damns their stories, dismisses the truth they know, condemns _him_, and Hiccup backs away, bristling _horror_ and _confusion _with everything he is.

Black Patch's commands puddle together with the flock's unwillingness to hear the stories _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ tell, their confusion whenever the dragon-pair speak about their home and their adventures, the head-tilted whistle of _confusion_ with which the Obnoxious spike-backed dragon had answered Hiccup's pleas to let him pass. These things join Shiver's bewilderment, her ignorance of the things _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have known all their lives. She had no warning cry for _human_. She gazed up at the moon with _disbelief _in her eyes as it moved across the sky. The weight of the stone above and all around, closing them in, freezes it all to ice, and Hiccup sees the true shape of it.

Hiccup had sensed the truth, as he felt the chill of winter stroking its claws down his ribs.

In winter, his dragon-cousins do not leave their nest, because the world beyond is dangerous then.

The flock of the glowing caverns never leaves _at all_, because the world beyond is _not real._ A lie.

_You down!_ Black Patch commands again, a familiar shriek – like Toothless' shriek as he dives to the attack – building in his throat. Wings mantled, eyes wild, Black Patch stalks after Hiccup as the dragon-feral scrambles away, paws clumsy with confusion and revolt.

With his back to the mushroom thicket and the edge of the little island, only water with an unknown current waiting below, Hiccup knows he has nowhere to run. Part of him cries _yearning_ for the wings that never grew, the fires that he never learned to breathe. Part of him wants to cower and wail, to cry out for Toothless, to scream _distress_ into the vault of stone and send his echoes out pleading. Toothless beat this little liar without even trying; his dragon-heart could fight this battle with him, easily. Black Patch would not _dare _face _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ together!

But _resentment_ burns in Hiccup's chest, beneath the bruises from dragon claws wrapped around him and the sharp _yank _of being pulled from the stone like prey. _Fury _blazes there for the _wrongness_ this yapping little Alpha has cornered him with – Black Patch does not even _want_ them here, and yet he demands that they stay and tell his lies to others, when _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _are not his!

And _resolve _strikes through him like lightning, changing the complex, changing shadows of the black night to the simple, clear brightness of a flash.

At bay, Hiccup rises snarling, his claws crooked ready to defend himself and the truth he knows and the world he and Toothless-_beloved-self_ belong to. The hidden caves are beautiful, but a beautiful nest they cannot leave?

_That_ is a cage. A trap.

The Alpha of this world commanded _down_, ordered _silence_.

_No!_ Hiccup roars defiance.

Black Patch springs at him in a snap-quick bound, and the blow that Toothless twice stopped from hitting Shiver slams into Hiccup's side; in an instant, he feels his hindpaws leave the ground and his fangs _clack _shut, the old-metal taste of blood seeping into his mouth from a bitten tongue. Everything in between is numb with shock.

All the luminous colors of the mushroom thicket explode out around him, and Hiccup crashes down amidst a cacophony of _crunch_es and _pop_s and _snap_s and _fwump_s and _shatter_s like broken ice. Delicate blue-green puffballs collapse, shredded, and tall stalks as off-white as a fish's belly break like twigs. Slim purple tendrils, hanging across other mushrooms like a dragon had torn apart a jellyfish and dropped the pieces with a pained yelp, waft into the air or are buried under fragments of thick-sided slabs of mushroom, standing like rocks but falling to pieces like mud. A thick, heavy dust fills the air, and Hiccup, dazed, pants through it, coughing as it coats the back of his throat, tingling across his bloodied tongue.

Some of the mushrooms must have had juices inside, he notices absently as he picks himself up, wincing at the blow he cannot yet feel. Colors smear across his scales like blood, but no creature Hiccup has ever hunted has blood that glows in changing colors, pulsing like the heartbeat it surely can no longer feel. The stone beneath his body and his paws is rough and irregular, tricking him when he tries to put a forepaw down; his claws sink through soft and giving mushrooms with many small _pop_s, and Hiccup lurches, off balance.

There is a shape in the stone, but he cannot quite see it, even though he seems to look at it for many heartbeats.

The emptiness at his back _screams_; for a moment he can almost see Toothless' shadow over him, wings outspread, their shapes merging into each other to become the single self they know they are –

Nothing there but the dust of mushrooms, and little sparks, and Hiccup lowers his head with a strangled whimper of _betrayal_ – where _is _he, his Toothless-_heart_? Can he not feel Hiccup's heart racing, running ragged and clumsy in his chest, calling out for him?

Instincts forged in battles and in play shriek at him, and Hiccup looks up.

Black Patch is still prowling towards him, nameless, impossible colors flashing across his scales. His eyes are dark, pupils blown out deeper than the chasm dividing Hiccup from his world, and Hiccup glances away, unwilling to meet them. He will fall in, he knows, and be lost…

Instead, he watches in distant fascination as another fragment of mushroom crashes down, like a branch broken by a too-heavy dragon-cousin who left it cracked but still clinging to the tree. Such branches are dangerous to climb across; they creak and snap and fall, leaving venturesome dragon-boys frozen upon them, caught between leaping to another branch and riding it down…

Lost in the rainbow-painted chaos of the broken grove, Hiccup paws at the stone beneath it all, hunting for the footing he knows he needs. _Danger _howls for his death, or to shut him away in a cage of stone, never again to see the sky. He must rise, he must fight, and he must get away.

His claws scythe through something that _pop_s, a sound that he has heard before, but that whistles awake some memory. The little dragon looks down.

Oh, he sees the shape now. How could he have mistaken it?

The depressions in the stone are dragon's tracks, broad and solid and as familiar as his own paws. They could be Toothless' tracks, laid down by dragons truly Like Them, long ago…

And in the stone tracks, untouched by dragons venturing here only reluctantly, there are the trodden-upon corpses of night-green bubbles, the glowing spores in their hearts floating around Hiccup like a cloud.

And his paw is so _small _within it, Hiccup cries out, _despair_. The scales and claws of his paws are right, but the whole will _never _be as it should be. He does not belong – he is not wanted – he should stop – he should back down – he should obey – he should _do as he is told –_

…if he did not know, as sure as spring, that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _so rarely do as they are told. He knows who he is, and he knows his enemies, and he knows those are _not his thoughts!_

_Stay-away!_ Hiccup howls a warning, pouring an avalanche of ice and snow between his thoughts and the _**Obey!**_ that Black Patch commands of him, forcing him down with an Alpha's strength, grinding him into the stone. But no, no, _no_; Hiccup shakes himself roughly, twisting aside from that spiteful blast, evading as if Black Patch had lunged at him midair with his shoulder turned to strike. _All _blows can be dodged!

His claws scream over the stone of the dragon's pawprint as he clenches them. His truth. His truth to fight for, to be so sure of that even an Alpha's will must break against it –

Outside the golden haze of dust, swimming through the air like so many fish that scatter when snapped at, Hiccup sees Black Patch bearing down on him, _fury _wavering like heat around the black-and-white Alpha's form. Something else coils about him, bright and dark, like the breaths and the heartbeats of an entire world, a flowing cloud reaching down a path it has never taken, until now…

And despite the _strangeness_ and the _wrongness_ tumbling around his shoulders, the dizzying feeling that climbs up his spine like a rainstorm sweeping over him, the little dragon clambers to his feet – he seems to have too many of them – and shakes his overlong, much-matted fur out of his eyes. The world spins _very _strangely, but Hiccup cares nothing for that. This is a fight he _must _win, or else the war of all their life is lost.

The dragon-feral, rebellious still, raises the claws that even now he is _sure_ of, and snarls.

That cloud hides lightning, and a blow he cannot see strikes him – reeling and bruised, stunned and shaken, Hiccup steps away, aside once, back again. Something shifts beneath his heel, trembling like a teetering snowbank.

With a _crack_ that becomes a crumbling, shuddering roar, the dark stone beneath him shatters like a frozen waterfall, struck by spring's first wild melt.

And Hiccup falls.

* * *

Water hits him as if he had leapt from the highest ice-peak over the king's lake, where their Alpha seems small enough to contain between two paws. The splash as the dark water swallows him drives the breath from Hiccup's lungs, a gasp as useless as his claws scrabbling at air that will not hold him and stones that have forgotten their solidness to fly.

_Cold _bursts around him like snow, and the lights of the cave soar away, wavering through the water; Hiccup kicks for the surface, chasing the light. But he sinks as helplessly as the stones streaking down beside him, a lifetime in and out of water lost.

Down and down and down he plummets like a fire-blasted gull, death-dark water engulfing him however he struggles to swim. It presses down on his shoulders, burning the last of his air from him. Half-panicked, half-numb, he feels a muted howl fly from him, to go where he cannot.

Something has him; something pulls at him like an ocean-cousin dragging her prey into the darkest places beneath the ocean. No fangs grip his belly, no claws seize his hindlegs, but he cannot escape, though he fights even without breath, throwing everything he is against the oblivion that leans on him with a broad paw.

He cannot – he _will not_ – drown here! Everything in Hiccup's soul rejects it, but the blackness of the deep is indifferent; it has trodden on him without noticing his presence.

It crushes like a mountain laid over his back, as heavy as the lives of a small flock gone wandering with _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _to lead them to a new home, as a wrapped-small bundle of black scales helpless in his paws. The water – he can feel it flowing whisper-tugging across his body, taste its salt across his tongue, surely he _must_ breathe – weighs him down.

Hiccup sinks, forgetting to fight, able only to lower his head and brace his shoulders and endure.

He sinks forever. Winters freeze and melt, the stars turn, saplings raise their heads to be very grand trees, and he falls.

He sinks for no time. Perhaps there is only the blackness, and no further to fall, and the little dragon floats like a leaf caught unmoving in a perfect current, defying wind and ground.

Like a dream, he waits and he falls and he drowns and he is, alone with the silence and the darkness, the pressure of an ocean overhead, the cold of winter's sea.

There, he coils himself around the fire in his soul, hoarding the life-heat of it, and endures.

In time, and in no time at all, comes a flicker of light more sensed than seen.

He remembers light; it looks the way the flame he shelters feels, glowing star-white, shimmering with blinked-away purple reflections of the shadow in the flame. That light calls him; it whispers _need _in silence, and he hungers for it with all that he is.

Instinctively, with a twist of his spine – it moves so easily, so perfectly, that the world resting upon it must have broken it to pieces, that he turns as smooth as sand – Hiccup moves towards that light; he can do nothing else.

As he swims towards it, his paws seem very heavy, and his body does not move quite right, or perhaps it is moving the right way for the first time in his life. A current like a whisper strokes down his spine, pushing lightly, and he corrects on instinct with a _swat _of rebuke for it. He is not so poor a swimmer to be turned aside so! He has hunted fish among flooded stones and chased riptides out to sea, and he will find this light if he wants to!

Closer to, it is a soft, shy thing, like moonlight through clouds. It huddles like prey-beasts in a storm, their heads down, their hides tangled together, unmoved by the winds that howl about them, or the hunters circling.

_Fear _breathes from it, but the whimpering fear of a hatchling crying, not the blood-heavy rot-stench of a wrong thing. It is a fear that does not dare cry out, not a fear that roars of hunger and hatred. It is fear held, not fear threatened.

Hiccup does not hesitate, wondering how he came here, or how there could be light beneath the sea, or where his last breath has gone without need to pursue. He does not ask for the weight of his paws, or the length of his spine, or the strength in his shoulders. There is a light, and he has been trapped in darkness, and he swims for it with the eagerness of hope restored.

And he –

Light breaks around him as he steps into an open space, the great weight on his back barely noticeable. The ground beneath his paws is the flattest, greyest stone, with nothing at all to notice about it. The edges of the light shimmer, with nothing beyond them. There are no scents in the air, but these things are not important before what rests in the center of the soft light.

A cage, evil and brutal and wrong; Hiccup bristles _loathing _at it most satisfyingly, the shudder _flick-flick-flick-flick_ing far down his spine. It shines with the gleam of metal that dragon-fire will not melt or blacken; Hiccup knows it from very cunning traps, and growls _warning_. The sound rumbles through his belly with a solid, pleasing power, and he bares sharp fangs.

The cage is barely bigger than the dragon within, who crouches with his heavy shoulders drawn up. A dark grey, broad-finned tail hides his bowed head. Tiny wings arch painfully over his back and sides, his mottled scales quivering _terror_. At Hiccup's snarl, he peeks past wingtips and tailfins with frightened eyes set deep into a heavy, flat face. Little tusks, barely more than a hatchling's first fangs, jut blunt and useless from his jaw.

_You?_ Hiccup chirrups, taking one tentative pace forward. He lowers his head, blinking _sympathy_ with a whine of _distress_. _No-you that-there that bad you good-reassurance sorry sorry you there that bad yes certain-sure! no-threat you me good watch!_

He does not _care _where he is, or how, or how _easy _it is to move – this is a dragon in a cage, and Hiccup knows what he is for.

As the little dragon lowers one wing, trembling _bad me small bad_ and peeping _distress_, Hiccup slinks around the cage with _anger _flicking through him; he can almost feel his tail lashing with it. He has seen an enemy's world from within metal bars, and he has reached his paws through cages he cannot open to comfort his flock-mates trapped there, whining _love_ never strong enough to drown out the _fear _in his eyes and theirs. He has crouched there, howling _grief _even as he offers the last kindness he can, as his flock-mates press their faces against his paws and nuzzle at him through the bars, whimpering and shivering with the knowledge of _death _stalking near them. He has fled only instants before death comes walking tall and laughing with metal in their paws.

He has heard those he loves as they die trapped and alone, their last fight stolen from them by the limits of a cage.

This cage has a latch; he understands latches. _Hope!_ Hiccup whistles to the little one within, flashing his tongue in a dragon's smile. _Look this here I do you look!_ Carefully, he raises a paw and works it under the latch, lifting the loop off its single fang and sliding it over so the fang bites nothing. And when he bats at the metal bars that should open, they do.

_C'mon!_ Hiccup beckons, _joy _in his eyes as the door to the cage swings open with a reluctant scream. _You you you out yes good c'mon free yes now-hurry c'mon want-want-want hello hello you good us you come-here-you must-important safe-here sure!_

Within the cage, the little grey dragon stares with hollow wonder, _disbelief_ in his salt-reddened eyes as he cowers. _Safe?_ he asks, a low, disbelieving cry. _Out? no out me bad._

Little Grey looks up at Hiccup with a tangle of signals racing over his body, _fear _and _hope _and _doubt _and _sorrow_ and _guilt_, cringing _bad_. Slowly, he rises to his heavy feet, but only to crouch deep and true _submission _before the dragon pawing _invitation_ at him. He turns his eyes up, and squints them half-closed _bright_.

_Confusion_, Little Grey peeps, whimpering the _fear_ his every signal screams. _Unsure._

_C'mon!_ Hiccup urges him again, begging _please_, and the little dragon creeps out of the cage.

With a yelp of _joy!_ Hiccup lets the cage door swing closed, leaping around the little dragon to push him further from it.

Silently, with no _clang_ of metal, the cage blows away to mist and disappears.

And even as Hiccup recoils, up on his hindlegs and catching his balance on instinct, it reappears, shut tight around Little Grey again.

The little dragon's cry tears gashes into Hiccup's heart – it is a sound without surprise or hope. It is the cry of all his flock-mates he and Toothless could not save, knowing that they will fly no further, ever. The blank hollow echoes with the sound of hopes torn open to die.

_No!_ Hiccup shrieks, _outrage_ burning in his chest bright enough to breathe. _No no no must-not not-so denial fight I fight fierce angry angry protect denial you no quiet hush refusal_!

Screaming _fury_, he leaps at the cage, swatting at the bars with a heavy paw and claws to tear. _No!_

The metal bursts to mist around his strike, and Hiccup staggers, stumbling through a corner of the cage as if it was not there, not real, nothing but a dream.

Within the cage, Little Grey flinches away from the bigger dragon's wrath, cringing _small _and _bad _as if he had done something very wrong. _Sorry!_ he cries, wrapping his tail over his long face again, only his ragged ruff showing over it. He protects the soft frills there with mottled wings, and between heartbeats, Hiccup sees a wound burn through the scales there and vanish. _Bad me bad me bad me sorry me sorry…_

Baffled, Hiccup paces around the cage, howling _agitation_ and _confusion_; out of the side of his eye, he sees something black and flexible whisk away, but he has no time for another strangeness when there is a cage defying him. He slams his forepaws through it, and it reforms. He bites it, and his fangs _clack _together, only mist on his tongue.

He reaches into the cage to scoop Little Grey up into his paws and lift the trapped dragon free, even though he must fight for balance, stirring the air around them, as he rears up. Little Grey is _heavy_, for a small dragon.

Casting about as the cage washes away and the little dragon in his paws whimpers, sobbing _fear_, Hiccup leaps for the edges of the light. Little Grey cries harmony with too many memories of heartbreak, mourning for those not lost but taken, fanning grief-cold flames back to life.

But as soon as Hiccup sets him down, the cage reforms, and Little Grey remains a captive.

At last, no time and forever later, Hiccup sits down hard with a _thwump_, whimpering _defeat_. The cage is still a cage. Little Grey still cries _hopelessness_ within it. The formless light of this shapeless place has not changed, and when Hiccup looks around, he finds that the light spreads out around them in a perfect circle again. Perhaps it moved to follow them. Perhaps they have not moved at all.

_Sorry_, he admits at last, reaching through the not-there bars not to strike or to grab, but to pet _gentle_ and _sympathy_ and _comfort_ across Little Grey's spine-fins. Chirruping _sympathy_, he listens to Little Grey's whimpers until he can sneak his own sounds in around them, nudging the little dragon's wails like one shoulder bumped against another.

Hiccup cannot set him free. He can only hurt with him, and be here, wherever here is, and understand that pain.

_Look_, he whistles at last, _attention!_ _This-here look you this not-so! lie! _he squawks –

(Was there another lie, before?)

– _out you want yes must-sure? out you yes!_ and Hiccup shrieks, as softly as he can, the glorious ascending cry of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ soaring upwards, faster than anyone, outracing all who try to catch them.

_No,_ Little Grey howls, _despair_, and wraps himself up tighter.

Howling _sorrow_, helpless, Hiccup steps back and looks up –

– and a wave of dark water crashes down, blotting out the light and the cage and the little dragon with all the inexorable force of the sea, roaring _hunger_ to devour him, and –

Something snatches Hiccup from the waves before he can leap, and the world spins, dizzying and maddening, _wrongness_ tangled up with _wrongness_ and the shuddering blur of _movement_ thrumming through his bones. Water roars past him, faster than the wave, and never touches him, and light breaks above him, as if he was waking from a deep sleep with the sun in his eyes –

In a blink, the true green-blue waves of the ocean's surface part and let him fly, but not freely; bruises carve across his belly, and claws dig into them anew.

On reflex, screaming _rage no no down me down fierce fight down me you-had-better down now now now, _Hiccup writhes and thrashes, knowing himself a captive, and furious. He has had _enough _of being dismissed for being small! Howling a promise of _vengeance,_ he twists in his captor's paw.

Golden eyes, bright and poisonous, flash _amusement_ like a blade down at him, above a sharp-fanged grin that snarls even as it smiles. Scars through the hiding-hunting cousin's jaw carve open deeper with the venom dripping from his fangs, and his scales shift with all the hungry, wicked reds of a forest fire, rolling over his narrow skull and down his spine.

Beyond anything but pure instinct as he breathes and the sharp-shimmering musty taste of a dark cave coats his tongue, Hiccup struggles to escape from the creature gazing down at him – there is something _wrong _about it, as if it were not a dragon at all.

Panicking, with a whimper-scream of _no no no no no!_ he snaps out his fangs and tears into those claws, tasting blood and fire to burn away the stale, forgotten scent of a cave where no true wind blows. He sinks his claws in where he can, tearing with all his small strength, though there is a power in his body he did not know he had.

The hiding-hunting cousin laughs like a scream, and drops him with an easy snap of his paw.

And Hiccup falls, falls again, falls still, has _never stopped falling –_

He falls up as wildly and fearlessly as he might plummet down, leaping from Toothless' back or squirming from Cloudjumper's claws, pouncing to a flock-mate's shoulders or learning to glide upon thermals. The sky howls past him in invitation – _come fly!_ He has been answering its call all his life, and its scream in his ears as he falls has always been _disappointment_, hurting with him as he falls, as his wings fail to grow and his body refuses to soar as it should, only to glide limping and good-enough.

Now the sky screams _desperation _as he tumbles through it, nothing but bright summer-blue and the blazing sun above him to end his fall, and Hiccup roars _defiance_, scrabbling at nothing for the balance and control that he _should _have, moving on the instincts he has learned and made his own all his life…

And suddenly – finally – _at last_ –

Everything works.

Broad night-black wings unfold from Hiccup's shoulders into the air where they belong, every bone and scale slicing through the air _just so_. They catch the wind like a flock-mate pounced upon in play, and he remembers in a flash picking up Little Grey in both paws, how _easy _it was to balance with those wings flaring out behind him.

And he beats them down, down, _down_ to match his thrumming heartbeat, every muscle in his shoulders moving _right_, and like a bone torn from a prey-beast slain, or a stone pulled from the earth, like a leaf ripped in half,

he

flies.

Hiccup soars free and powerful on his own wings, the tingling numbness of a limb slept-on fading with every wingbeat, pure physical joy rushing through him as he slaps away the _fall _and leaps into flight. He can feel his tail trailing out behind him, steering into the wind and balancing him, like a caress from one loved and trusted, like a stretch after a long sleep, like a realization of a mystery searched for and never solved.

_Yes!_ Hiccup screams to the sky, dragon's voice from a dragon's throat shrilling through his dragon's bones, a single sound that is _all _the sounds, _ecstasy _and _delight _and _triumph _as vicious and spiteful as a well-broken trap – at _last _he is free, and he screams the wild, glorious sounds that dragons use for _freedom_, far from the grunted _fuh-ree_ of _pfikingr _speech that has never been his own.

At _last _he has leapt from a place where he could live to a place where he _belongs!_ Those chains of flameless bone and wingless flesh and too-soft skin have snapped as chains _must,_ and he is free! _Exhilaration _surges through his true and right body, heart thumping within his black-scaled chest, stoking the fires in his belly brighter than the flashing sea below.

Diving and soaring, Hiccup spins as easily as any dragon, glimpsing in glances and the flickers of bone-familiar movements the body he has always _known_ was his, living and moving in the sky that has always been his home. Howling _triumph _loud enough to shake the stars, screeching _delight,_ he veers into a tight, ascending spiral, climbing up and up and up.

Black tail-fins, sharp and broad and _right_, spread and furl as easily as closing a paw, and they move _with _him! The spine-fins he has built and rebuilt so many times ripple between his shoulders, down the _right _arch of his back and the power there, down the long stretch of his tail, and every little wisp of air he meets guides his flight.

With a single wingbeat, he leaps from racing current to dallying eddy, snaps past a cloud that tears away beneath him as he races over its mist-thin surface, promising secrets it does not hide. Hiccup blasts through a tendril of it in a sharp, screaming-fast dive, feeling droplets bead and streak away over black scales that move _with _him, that _feel!_

His claws are his; his fangs are his; his wings beat powerful and easy as they pull on muscles that have always pulled back on them; his paws match Toothless' paws so that they might run in each other's tracks and leave only one trail; his shape is _right_! _He knew!_

Hiccup does not question _how_; he has dreamed his true self often enough to believe that one day he would wake to it. With the world around him as clear as waking, though strange as any dream, he wants only to fly.

Fire blazes in his chest, and the dragon Hiccup has always been roars. _His fire_ flashes from his throat and across the sky, purple-white and bright enough to squint at, screaming until it bursts. Heat licks across Hiccup's sides as he soars through its fading wisps, and _he feels it_; his scales do not scorch, but they feel.

At last, _at last_, Hiccup flies free on his own wings, as his right self, up and up and up, knowing the absolute rightness of it in his bones and his heart racing faster than _his wings_.

He luxuriates in the strain of muscles in his chest that have never worked so hard, but that roar and race to the chance now. The taste of flames in his throat is food enough to live on, sweeter than hard-caught fish in starving winter, and he blazes triumphantly into a blue and violet sky without borders or limitations –

(He cannot imagine a sky _with _limits –)

– screaming in perfect _joy_ as he tumbles and soars and shrieks _ecstasy_ to the sky that had been waiting for him, that screams back _welcome_.

Hiccup beats his wings down in the single sharp _snap_ of a great leap, his eyes fixed on a challenge he could only dream and murmur of, before.

He has everything he ever wanted – there is only the sun to catch, and _there is the sun!_ He will bring it to his Toothless-_half_ as the best of toys for them both to play with, and they will bat it around the sky together, diving and chasing and nipping at each other's tails, rolling and spinning and matching each other, climbing and soaring and racing the wind to the horizon.

Wild and mad with joy, Hiccup soars upwards, racing fearlessly into the brightness blazing above. It burns, but he has fire in his heart and his bones; it flies, but he was _meant _to fly!

From the ground and from dragonback, the sun has always been too far to see clearly; even to look at the blazing circle of it has been to look away blinking and pawing at his eyes to chase away the shadow it leaves, lingering to scold small curious dragons for staring. The sun is a very shy thing, though it flies most brash and proud.

The sun flies, and it burns, and so it _must_ be a dragon, though some dragons neither fly nor burn. And now, as he climbs into the sky on his own wings, he sees clearly –

The sun _is _a dragon, greater than them all, brighter than all their fires! She – she is a she – is golden bright, white bright, rich orange and red and purple and hot blue, sullen deep reds and churning flash-yellows, all the fires of all dragons. All dragons have fires inside; she shimmers with even the hidden black fires within.

The sun flies curled all in on herself, not with the cringing fear of Little Grey lost somewhere far below the waves, but with the easy, casual grace of a dragon who fears nothing, who has _never _feared _anything_, whom no yelping little flock-mate or snarling intruder can challenge. She is sinuous and beautiful, light shining from all her scales, her wings outspread to glide forever, following her own way alone.

Oh, she must be _lonely!_ Hiccup darts towards her, his wings beating harder. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have flown high, and fought against the thinner air where the sun and the moon fly, and so Hiccup knows he too must fly harder, but if he did not need to breathe beneath the ocean, he does not need to in the sky, either… _Excitement_ screams through all his signals, body and song, as he races towards her, caught up in the wild joy of a chance and a chase long dreamed-of, his claws outstretched to grab and bring her home –

(Had he needed the sun, for something?)

But she gazes down upon the world with the all-seeing eye of an Alpha, patient and amused and watchful, her power radiating out from her more strongly than burning heat or blazing light.

And Hiccup knows, with a dragon's instincts, that he may be right at last, but what he is doing is _wrong_ –

In a single sharp movement, Hiccup snaps away from his pounce, bleeding momentum from the edges of his wings, turning aside into a soaring glide, and streaking beside the sun like a falling star; they burn all at once, stars that fall, but they go so _quickly_. Perhaps some stars are more impatient than others.

Hiccup offers the Alpha that is the sun no challenge. He only asks to fly beside her for a time, to bask and to wonder and to adore; that is the proper due of all dragons who live beneath the sun.

And the merest edge of the gaze of the greatest of Alphas turns to him, blinding and inexorable and endless. She had turned away, he knows as she glances through him, with the kindness of a true queen as her little ones play.

Only for a moment – more, and even dragons will burn – can Hiccup flare back his wings and hover, crouching awestruck _Majesty_ beneath the distracted eyes of the sun.

Alphas can be challenged, but not this one. This one rules always, serene and untouchable, and Hiccup is only a _small_ dragon…

Only for a moment – but he will feel the warmth of her fires forever – can Hiccup turn his face up to her, purring _gratitude_ for her patience with him, and for his life spared.

(There was a world without her. A winter, when she flew away to sleep…?)

And Hiccup folds his wings, and he falls once more, unafraid to fall in the knowledge that he can and will always be able to fly.

The sun soars high above him, falling away but her warmth a benediction, and Hiccup glories in the body that should always have been his as it _burns_, fire in his bones and his belly and breathing across every scale from the tips of his wings and his tail and the end of his nose. He flicks his ear-flaps back _laughter_ and falls willingly, like a reckless star, chirruping in pure delight, and –

Sun-fire shadows scorch through the darkness inside his eyes, and everything stops.

Somewhere, there is a small fire, and Hiccup stirs towards it, mewling _confusion;_ the small movement defies him. Only moments ago, he had flown – now he struggles to lift a paw. Something soft enfolds him, body-warm and smelling of strange-familiar things, slightly sour, slightly sweet, like the den of a fox heavy with her kits, but without the vixen's sharp warning reek.

Hiccup grabs at it, meaning to pin it down and thrust his nose into it, but his paw will not do as he wishes; his fist only slams against the ground, and so lightly, barely a tap. A terrible weakness has crept into his body, like exhaustion after a long journey, or a battle hard-fought and barely won. He has never felt so _tired_, so frail –

Trembling in sudden fear, feeling his vulnerable underbelly turned up to the unknown place he has fallen into, Hiccup whimpers, a soft small sound. He moves to roll himself over, to offer the bare defense of his spine.

But he cannot even do _that_, and the little dragon screams _frustration_ laced with _fear_ – but the sound that pours from his throat is no dragon's cry at all.

It is a high-pitched, piercing wail, and once it begins, he cannot stop! Helplessly, Hiccup thrashes and kicks at it, turning his heavy head from side to side, and opens his eyes.

Very far above him, there is – he does not know. A cave, perhaps, but a cave so flat it might have been shorn from the rock, and all of wood, enclosing him. Tiny bars make a cage so weak it does not even have a top to it, and Hiccup's shrieks slide into _indignation_, to be held captive behind such bars! How _dare _they, those who have put him here? He will leap to all his paws and bound graceful and easy over them all, flee their soft things and their distant den-walls and the pitiful barrier –

– but oh, he is so _small!_ The paws he turns against the bars have no claws at all, and Hiccup screams _deprivation _and _heartbreak_, _hunger_ and _want want want no no-this no no wrong must-not need need where me where no no!_ His paws are all wrong, not even the right-enough of scaled gauntlets and borrowed claws and clever work; they are soft and shapeless and chubby as a small-cousin in summer, well-fed on scraps and lazy with the long sun. There are no claws to them _at all_, and they are not even _clever_, they are clumsy and useless.

Hiccup screams _loss_, wailing _longing _for the open sky and _frustration_ to be caught anew in a body that must not be, _cannot_ be, his own. The sound catches in his throat and climbs wildly, scrabbling for any grip it can find and hauling itself to greater exertions, blowing and lurching, chasing something it cannot hope to catch –

A low sound, a rumble rich with _fondness _and familiar sounds, shakes that climbing cry, and Hiccup swallows it again with a surprised _meep!_ as a face he knows looks down at him.

He is younger; even Hiccup, to whom human faces are strange, can see that. His fur is the full red of old metal left untouched to rot. His face has fewer lines carved into it. There is an easy softness in his eyes. His nose is still a thing to steal and bat about as a toy. The woven tangles in his fur are almost the same as Hiccup remembers, although they are tidier, as if other paws had made them. There are no horns balanced on his head.

As Hiccup whimpers _shock, _the _St-t-t-t-t-KK_ gazes at him with a smile simply, unmistakably _happy_. There is a light in his eyes that Hiccup has never seen there, bright and unsullied even by the tentative _fear_ that dances across his signals like reflections over water, a good fear, a hopeful fear.

The _St-t-t-t-t-t-KK _rumbles _thrr thrr thrr sshhhh _like a purr, and the slightly wrong sounds that mean _Hiccup_ in _pfikingr_ voices, and more jumbled sounds he cannot understand. The red-furred Alpha reaches out with paws as big as the world, ignoring Hiccup's yelp of _uncertainty_ – it emerges only as a bubble. Those paws engulf him, plucking him from his cloth nest as easily as a leaf from a branch, as gently as a breath.

There is strength in the _St-t-t-t-t-t-KK_'s paws, and deep instincts howl at Hiccup to shrink from them, to turn and run and not be caught, but instincts older still raise their heads and clear their dusty throats. Their voice, when they speak, is only a whisper, but one strong enough to shake the sea.

_Safety._

Struck all but silent, a lost whimper still quavering in his throat, Hiccup waves his paws until one of them, and then the other, finds scratchy fur to catch and hold. Against his entire body, the _St-t-t-t-t-t-KK_'s chest shakes in a _pfikingr_ laugh, like a tree branch jumping about in the wind, and with words that flow past Hiccup's muffled awareness like a stream.

Hiccup turns toward it on dust-voiced instincts, feeling scratchy cloth and worn leather and an Alpha's strength rasp gently across his defenseless skin. He smells of _pfikingr_, cut wood and worked leather and sweat and fire and fur, charred meat and oiled cloth and metal and _human_, but the voice speaking to the little one held in his arms resounds.

Most _pfikingr_ words will always be a mystery, but Hiccup understands the _tones_ of human speech perfectly well, and the _St-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ says to him, over and over, pure and true:

_Love._

And the last of Hiccup's cries fade from his throat, and he quiets, held in the _St-t-t-t-t-t-KK_'s paws. This is not his rightness, left behind among sunlight and unfallen stars, but it is safe. The red-furred Alpha will never let him fall. These little paws cannot fight free, but this man will never, _would _never hurt him.

This is a true thing now; it is _certain-sure_.

A second _pfikingr_ voice speaks, and Hiccup opens his eyes from his exhausted drowsing as a heavy stone, somewhere inside him, crumbles. The rockfall resting upon it collapses, and the cavern beyond that Hiccup could only peek into, past the barrier he built to bury the pain within, yawns open.

_Mama!_ Hiccup cries out, only _a-a!_ and not quite the sound he still remembers; she _is!_ He can see her! She is _right there! _He reaches out with one helpless paw for the woman standing there, smiling like all the love he has ever known, _amusement_ and _exasperation_ clear in her mouth, _joy_ in her eyes and _life_ beating in her throat. The face that he has only seen in forgotten dreams and a bright-sharp memory the king had given to _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ to share moves towards him now, looking down at her child and up at the man cradling him with the same bright-clear _love._

Her voice ripples _laughter _like water rushing, with the _snap!_ of a tail tapped against stone and a twist that invites _come-play!_ Her signals say _mine_, and she rests a paw on the shoulder of the _pfikingr_ Alpha who says that he was their mother's mate once, and her head beside it, and a gentle paw against her child's face.

She sways into her _pfikingr_ mate's side like a dragon's head tucked beneath a wing, easy and comfortable, and he leans into her, and _love love love love_ pulses between them and through the baby the _St-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ holds like steadily beating wings.

Lulled back to sleep, Hiccup-who-was tumbles back down into dreams, drowsing becalmed in his parents' arms –

– and the long blink ends, and Hiccup opens his eyes again on the little nest, the cloth binding him, the space around him dark, but _now_ there is a sound he knows with everything he is.

Somewhere nearby, dragons roar.

Dragons scream _hunger _and they scream _fear_, they scream _pain _and _confusion_ and _reluctance _and _anger_; they howl _you? you where? you safe good fear!_ to each other, and they shriek _I here I come you protect hurt no no no!_ They roar to each other in deep voices and doubled ones, fierce with crackling fire and fear-shrill through bared fangs. Even through the fog clouding his senses, Hiccup can hear many wings beating, as loud and frantic as a pouring thunderstorm, and the clash of claws. Fire roars with its own voice, tearing through the sky and sinking its teeth in to devour things that burn.

And Hiccup, who knows what he is, cries out to them.

_Here-I-am!_ he cries, wailing desperate _need _as he reaches for the dragons he has _always _known he belongs among. Beneath their powerful roars, his sounds are no more than a whimper against the thunder, but he wails a hatchling's keen.

_Here me here need you fear distress want want want where? where you where small me small need lonely fear lonely small here where?_

Oh, he has gotten so _lost _somehow, and his kin to lead him home are right _there –!_

_Please! _Hiccup cries, the truth in his soul scorching through darkness like a star. _Here me here longing need you!_

And fire sinks its fangs into the roof of the den above him, wood shattering and matted straw tearing open, as a dragon forces his way into a _pfikingr_ nest, seeking the dragon hatchling he can hear held captive there.

Red-gold with the firelight licking across his scales, his long tail with its complex fins hanging almost to the ground, many-winged and powerful, the ridge over his flattened face giving his golden eyes the sharp scrutiny of a peering owl, the dragon perches on the lip of the hole and brushes away the burning debris with a dismissive wing-claw.

Untouched amid the fire licking out all around, Hiccup turns his face up to Cloudjumper's and purrs perfect _recognition_. Of course.

_Mine!_ he chirrups, stretching out both forepaws to the ash-smeared wing-claw tentatively lowered toward him. _You you you here you mine love-you you right me here see-me look you here love-you!_

And as a familiar voice cries out _shock_, somewhere beyond the fire, Hiccup laughs up into softening golden eyes, burbling _joy_, and catches hold of Cloudjumper's claw…

All the fires go out at once, as if a storm wave had broken over them, not even the _hiss _of steam to mark their ashes; the voices of all the dragons are struck silent, as if they were never there.

Now-familiar darkness swallows him, and Hiccup screams _defiance _into its maw. He is caught like a leaf in a current, ripped from some stagnant place and sent tumbling down a cataract, able only to veer from eddy to eddy, stone to stone, shade to sun and back again.

He does not understand how he has been caught up in these rapids – there is something just out of his reach, like ash on the wind, and a blow that struck through all his defenses, throwing him back, throwing him _out…_ But all rapids end, and Hiccup knows how to swim.

So he swims, and yet he hurts, to swim alone. Is his Toothless-_heart _caught up in dreams along with him? Even when they sleep, sometimes they dream the same…

In the darkness, falling, Hiccup reaches out, calling _tt-th-ss, tt-th-ss_ layered with _self, heart, love, mine, beloved, half, dearest, where, where?_

When he crashes down, the world stays dark. He cannot open his eyes to see what strangeness may face him, but he does not need to.

Pulsing through him, he can feel Toothless' heartbeat, as familiar as his own. Their hearts beat together, and when Hiccup breathes, a single elated gasp, he feels Toothless' lungs fill beside his, a breath shared. Toothless' presence wraps around him, his shadow and his other self, warm and true and right.

_Toothless!_ Hiccup calls, trembling _missed-you!_ although his voice makes no sound. _Toothless-love!_

He does not need sight to understand the baffled _recognition_ and _need _that the black dragon returns to him, a visceral grunt that needs no other sound. _You! you here you right you mine! _Without moving, they twine together in the darkness, though Hiccup cannot feel black scales against his paws or his face, nor breath across his fur, nor blunt nose thrust into the hollow of his throat.

_Mine!_ the black dragon howls without sound. _Where you oh you here need need need here-now where? where? empty lonely need-you lonely lonely you mine!_

_Here,_ Hiccup purrs back to him, whining _anxious _that he cannot find his dragon-half in the dark. Darkness has never stopped them. _Here me here us good safe together-now right good here…_

His heart surges _love_, and the bigger dragon's heart with his, and –

No –

There is only one heart there beating, and one soul curled around it, fragmented into two. Their edges are not _quite _matching, but so close…!

Hiccup takes a breath, and feels his dragon-half's chest fill, in and out, fluttering with the heartbeat they share. Pain trembles along their single side, the familiar bruises of a crash through thick-branched trees and shallow gashes from stones. Ripping, shimmering agony, faded slightly now but lurking to flare back to life, pulls at the end of their tail, and his dragon-self has huddled into his own skull to escape it. A long, shallow wound traces fire across the shoulder they lie upon, and thin lines bite into scales that the black dragon – and Hiccup – dare not open their eye to see.

All around, there is the rich smell of broken green things, a forest in full leaf with sunlight warming the dappled ground. The earth beneath them is torn from where he crashed, trapped and frightened and alone, kicking at the midnight earth until he fetched up against a stone.

He remembers it very clearly, shoving the sudden shock of the immovable stone against the newfound comfort of the presence lying alongside him like an echo, twined into the empty places in his heart like fangs fitting together. _You you you who you? you right! you mine? you here you here need you me scared scared want want want out up-away go no down bad scared!_

He hurts he hurts he _hurts_, the black dragon pours out upon him, as if he did not know Hiccup at all, or even his name, and yet he _does _know Hiccup; there was an emptiness within him to be filled, but he is too afraid to question how, only to seek comfort.

He cannot escape, the bindings are too strong, and he does not _understand_, he was quicker than all and high and hidden in the night, and _how and how and how_ has he been torn from the sky and cast down to hurt and whimper _all alone –!_

The nameless dragon's heart races helpless _fear_, and Hiccup howls soul-deep _sympathy_. Here he is only a shadow, the cruelest of all nightmare forms, unable to roar fangs and fire to their defense or to cut his dragon-self free.

_Here_, Hiccup can only whimper, wrapping this Toothless-without-a-name, frightened and alone, in all the thoughts of _love_ and _calm _and _reassurance_, whispered memories of _together us together safe good together love-you love-always you me we us together-always certain-sure…_

Leaves and branches rustle against each other, and clumsy pawsteps stumble through them. A shrill, yelping cry sends their ear-flaps down _despair_ at the sound of a human voice.

Within, the black dragon wails _fear_ and clings to Hiccup's shadow, hiding from the death crowing over him the only way he can.

_Here,_ Hiccup can only promise him, every shred of his soul revolting against this thing that _cannot be_; death cannot take them here in dreams, they have far to go together! Part of him wants to believe that this is only a dream, that he will wake and paw the nightmare from his eyes and know his Toothless-_self _alive and safe and with him, but the bright, trembling strength of the perfectly familiar mind _here_ says that this is true, somewhere.

Even in dreams where _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ run together, there is a mist between them.

_Love-you_, Hiccup whispers, a promise true always, and wraps himself around his terrified other half, who has been alone so long and who hurts _so much_. _Brave you certain-sure us-together us brave love-you…_

_Brave_, this lonely black dragon sends back to him, a wish as much as a promise, and they open one eye to face their death together.

Among the endless, ever-varying greens of the sunlit forest, there is a little _pfikingr_, pointing a blade held in shaking paws at the downed dragon. His fur is a ragged red-brown, brighter than the prey-fur wrapped around his thin body, wide green eyes staring with fear and conflicted delight and deeper horror above a snub nose scattered with little spots.

Death stands over them with a blade, wearing _small _like _small _cannot be deadly, and they know what blades do.

And yet his body cringes away as if he does not want to kill them – his sounds yip _triumph_, but they shade into _regret_, and his signals whine that he does not want to kill them _at all_.

The black dragon, with the other half of himself breathing _courage_ into his soul, takes a chance.

And he pleads for his life.

_No,_ he cries, a whimper. _No…_

Together, for a moment _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _and whole, they stare back at the _pfikingr_ boy.

Frightened green eyes meet one green eye just as frightened, and dragon and boy see each other, _recognition_.

Through that eye, Hiccup sees him too, and _disbelief _sinks through him like the dark wave that sits back and laughs, refusing to take him now. Wrapped around the hilt of that blade, Hiccup sees the clever paws he knows so well, though they bear different scars. He sees the spots that his Toothless has teased him over, pinning down a body too small to truly fight back and touching the tip of his tongue to each, tracing them out like the stars. He sees the snub nose he has wrinkled _exasperation _at every dragon in his flock and so much of the world beyond, a dragon's expression mapped to almost his mother's face, seen again so recently.

_Me?_ Hiccup yelps; while the nameless dragon stares, he cannot look away.

_No!_

Maybe, if Cloudjumper had not heard his cries, and if he had not known where he belonged. If the king of their flock had not leaned into him, teaching him to listen to a voice like thunder and tides. If he had been kept from half of himself, never learning to speak and to sing. If he had crawled mute and flightless along the ground always, under the buffets and grumbles of _pfikingr _–

But he has flown and he has lived and he has fought and he has hunted traps and monsters, and they have done it all together, and they have been _whole_ – and _(click)-phuh_ is something else entirely.

_You-mine_, one of them thinks, or the other; it does not matter.

In the forest, they shut their eye, and they turn away.

And when the _pfikingr _boy turns that blade against the ropes instead, cutting the downed dragon free, there is enough hesitation in the black dragon's mind to only knock him down in a leap and look him over, _doubt _humming through his signals.

_This?_ he wonders; there is something familiar about him, now…

_Bad!_ he roars rebuke, one paw on the human's narrow chest, careful with Hiccup's memories of a lifetime of being held just so. _No no no you that bad wrong must-not you no you-had-better I say you no danger hurt bad not-like! angry!_

But the black dragon lets him go, and with a powerful leap, springs into the air with his wings spread, racing for the sky. Freedom and escape are _there_, just a wingbeat and the right wind away! Their heart surges with the wild ecstasy of beating when it should be silent, bleeding all their life into the sun-warmed earth. A leap, and there is the sky, and the corner of their mind where SHE has set her teeth is silent! They will set their tail to the fogs and they will _go_ –

In an instant, their glorious flight collapses beneath them, _agony_ rising from its rest and roaring. Fangs rip at their tail, and the black dragon hits the earth hard enough to knock all the breath from his lungs, screaming in shock and pain –

And that _pain _lances through Hiccup like a claw, tearing him away from the other half of himself as surely as if their flying-with had snapped straight through; somewhere far away, he remembers bloody, icy sand scattering beneath him as he crashes, far from this thick green wood.

Below, a black dragon thrashes through the undergrowth, wailing _pain _and _confusion_ and bitter _loneliness_ more acute for the moments he was whole, and Hiccup finds himself perched on the crown of a very tall tree. His own wings fold at his back, his unmarked tail waving to be tugged on, his earflaps flicked back and down _hurting _for the dragon who is not his Toothless-_self_, not quite. From here, he can see the shape of the island, familiar from above.

_Buh-rrrrrKK_, the Island of Dragons and Strange _Pfikingr_, and there was something about it he had forgotten…

The tree sways in the wind, and Hiccup digs his claws into the branch reflexively, but they do not bite and leave no scars. He is dreaming still.

He would like to wake up now, Hiccup decides, and launches himself into the air with that great leap that _no one _can match, that snaps heads back and leaves their flock-mates scattered in their wake. There is a shape to the world that he has not seen before, he notices. It pulls at him like falling, a gentle tug that whispers _that way, that way, that way_ always…

Hiccup sets his side to that pull just _so_ and flies, racing for where he belongs, and the sky folds around him like tailfins furled in.

Beneath his wings, the ocean blurs. Salt-spray washes the taste of something _wrong _from his throat, washing his tongue with the familiar living scent of the sea. Islands and currents and sea stacks and reefs and other familiar landmarks fly past, days of wandering journey crossed in a single sprint. Above him, the sun watches.

He flies forever. He flies for no time.

And above the waterfall that swallows the ocean, Hiccup backwings in pure horror, quavering _revulsion_ and licking at his jaws for a _sickbadwrongthing _indeed.

Where once Shiver chirruped _c'mon _and dived beneath the earth, a monster crouches over the flooding pit like a wolf that has chased a prey-beast to its burrow, pacing just beyond with its nose low and its teeth bared.

The creature hunched at the lip of the waterfall, pawing at the pit with jagged metal claws, is streaked thick with old blood. Its chest has been torn open and its ribs cracked, the black-clotted hollow of its body emptied, and yet it moves with a terrifying intensity. Hunger drools from protruding jaws, hissing into the water like poison, though the creature gulps it down. Its body is a human body twisted and starved to death, every bone showing beneath its bloody rotted-leather hide. Fur, as dead white as an old and tasteless bone, straggles over the face thrust almost into the pit.

As Hiccup recoils instinctively, diving away into a long, veering glide, it looks up, scenting at the air with a flat, ragged nose.

_Where?_ it roars, drooling hungrily. Grey-white eyes, ruined by matching scars torn through both sockets, move blindly across the sky.

_Hungry!_ the creature groans. It bares snaggle-toothed fangs and snaps at the air, moaning _disappointment_ and _rage _when there is nothing there to eat. But it keeps biting. _Where?_

_Wrongness_ seeps from it where it crouches. Wherever it steps, pacing around the pit, the ocean shudders away.

_Needneedneedneedneed_, the thing fumes to itself, and screams.

It screams a name.

The sound licks over Hiccup's chest as cold as death, even the blasting-fires burning within him drawing away. He remembers now.

But once more, he shoves it aside, climbing into the sky _knowing _that he will find the right wind. On the wings he mourns already, Hiccup circles above the pit, waiting to pounce until the monster that has pursued them so relentlessly looks away…

And in the single sharp _snap_ that he and Toothless know so well, Hiccup dives.

The sky wails through his ear-flaps, and he flicks them back against his skull, his eyes fixed on the whisper-thin gap between monster and ocean and stone and cave-darkness that traces out his path home, veering and spinning and jolting almost sideways at the slightest flicker of movement just _there –_

Snaggle-toothed jaws snap shut a breath behind his tail, and Hiccup snaps his tailfins away before they can be caught and torn.

He hits the dark of the hidden passage dead center, and the dark waves of the ocean waterfall roar down over him, sweeping him away.

* * *

Dying lights fade all around him, glowing colors turning black and broken a breath from his cloudy eyes. The rock he lies among seems a mountain range, and only when he rolls onto his side, coughing hard enough to throw up fish long forgotten, does Hiccup see that it is only a small ridge of dark stone.

A pulsing ache treads through his skull on heavy feet, digging its claws into the bone and chewing on the back of his eyes. Rocks have pressed deeply into his flesh all along his back and side, and his shoulder aches as if he has slept on it very clumsily, the forepaw he braces himself on so numb, it might be another dragon's paw entirely.

Tiny stars fall all around him, wafting spores blinking out like fireflies. Dust from shattered mushrooms drifts away on wingbeat winds as Black Patch paces towards him as if Hiccup had not been gone at all, pinning the little dragon down with his stare.

There is only the barest _uncertainty_ in those black-flooded blue eyes as Hiccup spits grit and dust from his tongue, panting shallowly. His chest aches as if he had run very far, a claw-sharp pain deep within, and he is thirsty enough to forget Black Patch, forget the next blow he can feel gathering above him like a thundercloud, forget all his caution of strange cave-lakes, and dive into the dark water to gulp it all down.

He has fallen into it already, after all, though his scales are dust-dry.

When he looks down, glancing away from Black Patch only to learn the shape of his battlefield once more, the depressions in the stone are shapeless puddles, not dragon tracks. He may walk in the pawprints of those Like Them, but he cannot see their trail.

Hiccup considers the clever paw braced beside the stone puddle, dark with dragon-scales and sharp with borrowed claws. He knows what that paw should look like; he has seen it so, and Hiccup knows who and what he is. He can _see it_, as he hovers still along the edge of dream and waking. He can paint that picture bright enough to see…

Black Patch stalks closer, snarling, _power_ gathered up in bright blue eyes to seize Hiccup and force him to bow. The little Alpha reaches into his thoughts, setting his claws into Hiccup's skull and holding him tight.

It is _safe _here, in the only world, Black Patch declares, and he must not _spoil_ it with pretending something that _**is not so!**_

_**Down! Submit!**_

But beneath Black Patch's frantic screams, flooding into his thoughts, Hiccup steps aside like he has ducked beneath a waterfall's ledge, and turns over a new idea like a stone to find that it is not a new idea at all.

He bats the stone off that ledge, and listens to it bounce from truth to truth, tracing a path for him to follow.

Toothless fought this little Alpha and won, and the flock of this nest crouches _Alpha _to him.

An Alpha who has _lost _is no Alpha at all.

And _tt-th-ss_ and _(click)-phuh _are a single self, and the same.

Black Patch rears above him, paw raised for a blow, fangs bared _fury_, that shimmering cloud of an Alpha's authority striking down like lightning, and Hiccup looks up with his eyes open.

_Oh_, he says, unafraid, a low cry of _realization_.

But that is _easy…_

In a blink, Hiccup snatches the swirling, churning, howling blast of the Alpha's power, twining it around his clever paws like the cords of their flying-with. He sinks his claws into it, and sets his heels, and _pulls_ with all his strength.

A thunderstorm surges over him, rain and wind and roar and the shivering sharp taste of lightning, tumbling chaos and wild daring, heat beneath his paws and the cold of the black heart of the high clouds, towering impossibly far above earth and ocean, churning like a maelstrom. Countless whispers pour through him, _fly here look you you want hungry fish! catch fish! not-like she she hit she smug us go me here this mine no touch I find look me love-you curious shy me me me look-at-me joy fear hide dark chase regret fight me fight up up up no bad mine hatchling you pest you go-away c'mon c'mere like like climb me me me me me wonder that look there new interesting strange wonder fine-then good here sigh longing enough me me me me me me me…_

The flock of the hidden nest wake and sleep and hunt and play and grieve and scheme and dream and tease and hurt and sigh, and Hiccup can hear them all.

Roots twine around his paws like starlight and smoke, lightning and fire, shadows and stone, there only when he looks _just so_, but Hiccup can see them clearly, grasping around his heart as the dragon-feral sits back on his haunches and presses his paws to his pulse, beating wild and exhilarated and daring. He can do this thing! He is a dragon, he can hear Alphas and he can send back to them, and he is half of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ who challenge Alphas and _win_! _He can!_

Those roots run withered and scarred through Black Patch, who stumbles away with his eyes wide _fear_ now, shrieking _bafflement_ and _disbelief_, _shock _howling through all his signals. Hiccup feels it with him, and leaps to the attack.

_No!_ he growls, pushing _refusal_ down those roots; they drink it thirstily, and grow stronger. _Liar! You see look look look I show!_

Those roots trail out beyond Black Patch, thin and tentative but _there_, spraying out beyond him like glimmering traces of crystal in stone, pulsing faintly with all the infinite colors of glowing stone and dragon scales. Each of them is a dragon, and for an instant, as he tears the roots that bind the flock together from their falling Alpha's skull, Hiccup knows them all.

Black Patch wails.

And _(click)-phuh_ roars.

_**Listen,**_ says Hiccup, and _everyone _hears.

Together, the flock thinks _within_, not even knowing that they think it. They look at the limits of their world and never think to ask what lies beyond. They have never been told that _beyond_ exists. The stories that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ told, their whistled and cried sounds, Hiccup's drawings – they made no sense. How could the flock understand something they had never even imagined before?

Into their thoughts, Hiccup pours out the world _he _knows, hidden from them all their lives. The stormcloud roots he buried in his soul drink down truth and bloom, showing his memories to all.

His sky is vast and glorious, bright blue expanse falling away endlessly, laced with the shining golds and blazing reds and charred pinks of sunrise, or the deep umbers and sighing violets and livid oranges of sunset. The sun blazes untouchably far above, an inferno that breathes down _love _upon the open world in summer and slinks away to yawn and sleep in winter; Hiccup gives them the delicious touch of the sun's warmth on an upturned face, like a purring mother's tongue.

Oh, _clouds!_ Clouds are for dragons, water to lick from their scales when they fly far and to hide beneath and dart around, chasing their flock-mates through the sky. Clouds are shapes that change always, as pale as dragons Like Them and growling dark as Toothless-_beloved_, with thunder like a rockfall in their bellies and lightning fiercer and faster than dragonfire, rain pouring down sweet and fresh or torrential and punishing; clouds play as differently as dragons.

_Here _is the wandering expanse of the sea, moving always, never still. _There_ are waves that crash along the shoreline to pounce at and flee from, gurgling _play_, squawking _wet!_ and the easy peace of floating in the shallows, dozing on the breathing back of the sea.

_This _is the freedom of the open air, the friendly cuffs of winds to roll with and dive among. The scent of green things growing, and the excitement of finding somewhere new. The mystery of a deep forest, rich with life all around and peaceful death melting into the soil underfoot.

Hiccup gives them the relief of meeting a flock-mate safely returned from far away, the thrill of discovering new friends, the adventure of making new enemies instead, to be outrun and dived past and jeered at.

He gives them stars to be followed, spinning pale and serene far above, and memories of lying beside his Toothless-_self_, warm at his back and _love _pulsing between them, awake and watchful and content to watch those stars be. He gives them the changing moon and the incredible tangled vistas of the open world, the tundra and the mountains, cliffs with the sky beyond and snow that buries the world.

_Here _is the endless ocean, and the game of chasing whales through cracks in the ice, and of diving too low and splash-crashing into the waves, and of trading insults with ocean-cousins, sea-dragons jeering at sky-dragons and better given in return.

_Here _is the exhilaration of flying without ever, ever having to stop. The endless challenge of chasing the horizon, never knowing what they will find.

_Here_ are the caves they can always come home to, and the peaks they can perch on to see so far, and the riotous play of hatchlings who clamor for danced-out stories of wanderings and ashes traced across their scales.

Somewhere, very small beneath the echoing power of an Alpha's command and memories of all the world, Hiccup feels blood run down his face, his head bowed over the storm-and-shadow roots buried in his heart. _Pain _hovers over him like a thundercloud, waiting its own time to descend, but Hiccup has flown through enough storms not to be stopped by one now. Pain that has not yet happened is not real.

He is too small to bear the weight of the flock alone.

He does not need to.

_Toothless-best-beloved!_ he cries out, and a bright cord – no dark and gnarled root, but a straight-sketched line flashing like lightning and blasting-fire and love – streaks out across the cavern. It was always there, and all the stone in the world could not break it.

Toothless fought this flock's Alpha and won, and Hiccup stole that power with quick and clever paws, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ will stand their ground for their wider world together.

And at once, Toothless is there with him, as clearly as if Hiccup could see his dragon-self's shadow fall over him, wings outspread and jaws blazing, with a roar of _love_ and _protection _and _always_.

Eyes closed – they have so _many_, now! – Hiccup turns his face up to the beloved presence standing above him, and all Toothless' strength merges into his in an instant, snap-simple.

They are, and have always been, one and the same.

Toothless' memories join his, bringing life and depth and color to the truth they have brought to share, as if each of them had seen the world only through one eye; now they see through two.

_Here _is the sea shown boundless deep and full of mysteries, fish to swipe from the blue-green waves and fire that shimmers across it by night, sky-fires burning above and reflected below, and the ocean-cousins who fly beneath those waves, enigmatic masters of their dark domain with steam in their throats and lightning crackling across their scales.

_Here _is the joy of the chase, diving upon running prey-beasts from above with their flock-mates at their side, soaring over them with roars and fire blazing, the snap-quick thrill of fixing on _one_ to bring down and lunging, and of veering away with jeers and protests when a flock-mate leaps for the same kill.

_Here _are the fascinating, complex scents of the world above, painting it in invisible colors and untouchable textures and fleeting tastes, and Hiccup breathes those memories in with _wonder _as bright as anyone's, smelling many of them for the first time. They are a pleasure, next to the stale-but-sparking scent of broken mushrooms still thick around him –

(_Love-you you here you me we us!_ Toothless purrs just between them, and Hiccup tastes the _hurt _and _betrayal _lying like shadows across his heart-self's soul. No more than a curious whisper of _what?_ and Hiccup knows all that Toothless knew, the clawing hurt and the shuddering disorientation of Shiver's manipulation –)

(They sense Shiver's fear, too; _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ know her, even among all the thread-thin bonds tying them to the selves of this flock. She trembles with _regret _and _confusion,_ the _desperation_ of one who saw all her hopes turned to ashes, who, in lunging to save them, blew those ashes away with a hasty flap of her wings.)

(_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ consider her with _disappointment_ and _pity_, tasting her deep loneliness.)

(She offers them her memories of a strange and impossible world, without the arch of a cave-roof overhead or walls to define the shape of the sky. There is the wonder of an _up_ that did not stop, and amazement at lights that changed on and off as regular as the slowest heartbeat, and the pure _surprise_ of things that were new and different, when there had _never _been things new and different before, and _hope_ as sharp as pain…)

These things too, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ show their flock.

They tell no lies. They hide no truths. Their world is dangerous, too.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ give these dragons, who live in a world without hunters, the griefs and the dangers that have shaped their life always, as sharp and cruel as a keening howl. _Here_ are hunters that strike dragons from the sky, tearing wings with cutting blades and splitting hearts with biting arrows. _Here _there are ropes and chains that grab and bind, that hold and restrain. _Here _are traps.

_Here _there are the predators that share their world, smaller than most dragons but as fierce as they must be to survive, and prey-beasts that can kill with a defensive blow.

_Here_ is hunger that eats into bellies without hope of food, exhaustion from flying too far into an unknown distance, cold deep enough to kill.

_Here _is _fear _so dark and jagged and paralyzing that even grand roars become near-silent whimpers, the press of frightened tail between legs that long only to flee, against a belly that flutters and quavers.

In the world there are howls for those beloved who died too soon, or who flew away never to return, but there are also bright screams for predators dodged and traps cheated – this they _know_, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ send with pride – and prey found when they needed it most.

Their world hurts.

But they will not hide from it.

_**Look!**_ _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ roar in the one way no dragon can ignore or doubt.

They have been storytellers since they were very small, acting out their adventures under the fascinated or indulgent eyes of their flock-family.

Here, then, is the tale they were always meant to tell.

Here, then, is the world beyond these hidden, glowing caverns, and it is rich with horrors and wonders both, but _it is_

_**REAL!**_

Their roar echoes off the stone enclosing them all, confining them, stealing even the dream of freedom from the dragons it has held within for so long, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ throw themselves against it with all their strength and all their cunning and all the scarred and bitter hatred of their lifelong war.

They are trap-breakers, even when the trap is the size of a world, and the limits of these stones _offend_ them.

That the littlest one Like Them, a dream they never dared dream of given fragile, precious form, might _never_ fly free? That she will be kept beneath these stones always, never looking up to see the stars and follow them?

_It must not be!_ the dragon-pair rage.

They know too well how much easier it is to hide. Hiccup tried, after death came hunting to destroy them and all they loved –

– and the flock feels the horror of cages and madness, and the _grief _and the _guilt_ of those days after, in their bones –

– but Toothless showed him that they could not live that way –

– and together, the flock feels the hard-earned, wobbly _triumph_ of the first steps towards healing –

What if _she _is not meant to live confined? That new-hatched baby is far too young to hear them as they roar: through her mother's stunned eyes, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ glimpse her wobbling untroubled across her hatching-nest, learning how her paws can make her go.

She should have the _choice_ to know all the world she can!

For her, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ reach up, feeling their claws scratch against the eggshell, unbroken, enclosing them all. Within an egg is the safest of places, they and the flock know, but eggs _must _hatch, or the baby within dies.

For her, with a single blow, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ break open the sky and let in the sun.

The vault of stone cracks, splitting in two and falling away, vanishing into harmless dust, and the scorching, cleansing light of the Alpha of the world floods into the minds of every grown dragon in the cavebound flock, caught up in the dream _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ spin for them, illuminating their darkened world with the full light of day.

And as warmth and sunlight bathe stones and eyes that have never known the sun, Hiccup blinks into it with his own eyes, straining to see past it. Just for a moment, as vanishing as mist before the dawn, he sees a flood of black dragons, flowing through each other, spring from the hollows at the base of the cliff face. In a flurry of wings, they leap towards the sun, and fly.

One of them stops and ducks her shoulders to them, _gratitude_, and then she is gone.

In moments – after forever – _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _release their grip on the threads stretching between their hearts and the dragons of their flock, and the dreamed-of sunlight fades. The _power_ of an Alpha's roar ebbs from the air of the caverns, stirred up by the fluttering wings of startled dragons and ringing with baffled, wondering cries of _fear _and _joy _and _amazement_ and powerful _curiosity._

And amid the shadows of the dark island, Hiccup crashes down into his own small body, himself again.

He can feel blood streaming over his mouth as if he had smashed face-first into a stone not where it should be. The rift that they opened in stone, in thoughts, has only moved to the center of his skull; he hurts as if he might fall in two. His paws are shaking, clammy sweat trailing down his spine, and he is thirstier than he has ever been in his life, even lost for days with only saltwater as far as Toothless could find. He has dug his claws into his own palms nearly deep enough to draw blood, and he would like to sleep now.

But he can feel Toothless spread his wings and race towards him, that flash-bright and true bond between them drawing tight. Perhaps it is only instinct. Of course Toothless will come back to him.

He never doubted.

The roots of an Alpha's power are wrapped around his heart, gripping tightly, quiet now.

On his knees amid the rubble of a blow that smashed him down, Hiccup paws the blood from his face and raises his head, shaking his fur from his eyes.

Clever little dragon, with faith stronger than stones – he looks Black Patch, who cowers _horrified_ and _small_, straight in the eye, and bares his teeth.

_Well?_

Defeated and deposed, Black Patch bows his head, and crouches _Alpha_, and looks away.

Throughout the glowing caverns of the hidden nest, dragons raise their heads and their voices in shrieks and wails and cries as Toothless darts through their false sky, racing for the heart he calls home. They chatter to each other in disbelief, yowling a new sound, wild and thrilled and triumphant, they never knew before.

_out! out! out! out! out! OUT! OUT!_

* * *

In the utmost darkness where only the memory of light goes, deep beneath the weight of the waves, somewhere no one will ever, ever look…

…something stirs.

* * *

_To be continued._

**Author's Note: **With thanks to **10Blue10**, who told me the joke about Ba Sing Se, and **TamerLorika**, who listened to me scream about glowing mushrooms and said, "Do it!" They should both know better by now.


	18. Chapter 18

_**Freefall, **_**Part Eighteen**

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Astrid asks far too late, catching herself as a loose stone slips beneath her boot. All around her, the thick, tangled forest of Heather's island has given way to bare, dark grey stones; tiny, ground-hugging shrubs barely taller than her knee; and half a world of sky.

"Wasn't this your idea?" Heather grins back at her, four paces ahead up the chalk line of goat trail that she'd laughably called a path. If one of them is ambushed by fire or fangs or the hard-striking tail of that strange dragon they're after, the other won't be caught by the same blow.

Tall stone cliffs rear up on their left, the wind sighing down over them a chilly breath even in the swelling summer. On their right, a jumble of ledges and sharp rocks and deep crevasses yawns. Heights don't bother her, but she knows Berk's heights and edges a lot better than this barely trodden mountainside, and Astrid moves warily. _Gods, I've gotten spoiled_, she chides herself when she catches herself wishing they could have just flown. Stormfly is back in the Berserker village, the wounds to her side still healing.

"Going hunting, sure. Since I'm here, you know. Not got anything else important going on. Might as well take care of your dragon problem for you." Heather snorts. "Standing up against the sky and waving –"

"I waved _once._"

"– not so much."

"We want to find it, don't we?" Heather's dark rope of plaited hair disappears around a boulder, tiny basking lizards scattering as her shadow falls over them. Astrid hopes as she follows that their much larger, winged, fire-breathing, sharp-clawed cousin doesn't move that fast. It shouldn't do. Too heavy, from what she'd seen.

But anything's fast, if it takes you by surprise. "Yeah, but we don't want it to find us first!"

"Oh, so that's the way you're gonna turn it?" Heather teases, even as she gestures for Astrid to pay attention, and to follow in her footsteps exactly. "So it wasn't me that caught you before you charged off into the forest all by yourself, after a wounded dragon we don't know anything about?"

"I let you catch me," Astrid counters, tugging the strap holding her axe to her back a little tighter. She scans the mountainside not for the view – although it's glorious – but for the danger that's got to be out there somewhere. "And it hurt Stormfly. I owe it that one. The twins just have the luck of the gods."

Those gods know how much of a weight has been taken off Astrid's shoulders these last two days, waking up in her best friend's little house to the sound of dragon voices overhead, as reliable as any dawn chorus. She's been able to breathe again, standing on Heather's threshold and watching the strangest members of her tribe, even if they're temporarily in hiding, soar and tumble and play together. She's even been able to smile as she watches them stepping carefully around the village houses, which are so much more breakable than Berk's dragons are used to, and eying equally wary Berserkers, uncertain if they're friend or danger.

Most of Berk's dragons, with none of their particular friends here, have scattered into the interior of the island. From the mountainside where Heather's led her for some reason, away from the rest of the hunting party, Astrid can look down and see occasional colorful flashes of dragon wings darting through the sky. They leap out of the forest in quick lunges and dive back down again, or soar low over the treetops towards the ocean. She can only hope the refugee flock is staying close, and not running for home.

It doesn't ease her heart any to see the stitches dancing across Stormfly's side, marring her blue-dappled scales, making her wince every time she tries to spread her wings. That's where Astrid had been this morning, listening to Heather scratch Stormfly's nose and hold her head steady while Astrid traced out the healing wound that strange, aggressive dragon had dealt her dragon friend.

And then Ruffnut and Tuffnut had careened by, chasing what turned out to be a giant cheese they'd sent rolling, steering it with sticks and trying to run over each other while Heather's Berserkers chased them and cheered. Berserkers like free entertainment as much as anyone else, but no sooner had the whole mad parade disappeared beyond some houses than the screams had started.

Without hesitation, Astrid and Heather had snatched up their weapons, always to hand, and run. They'd found Berserkers scattering and that heavyset, crab-clawed, thick-tusked dragon in the midst of them, roaring and lashing out, cheese splattered beneath its powerful hindlegs like the beast had fallen out of the sky.

Seven people had been hurt, though Berserker warriors had wounded it in return before it gave up and retreated, lurching into the sky and heading deeper into the island.

While her people swore over bruises and howled at the sting of cutbalm – Astrid can't help but wonder if _all _healers brew painful poultices for small and therefore stupid wounds – Heather had set her hands on her hips and said, "All right. That's gotta stop."

"Want help?" Astrid had volunteered as the Berserkers' healer, a tall, grey-haired waif so wrapped in furs that no one's sure what's underneath, stalked through the crowd in pursuit of a man who'd rather suck on his burned hand than submit to their cure, scolding in a voice more song than speech.

"I'm not asking, by the way. If you're going out there, I'm going with you. Come on, Heather. Spare me from spending the day trying to get those two –" and she'd jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the downcast, totally unharmed, somewhat cheese-bedecked twins, "– to explain what's up with the cheese."

"You don't explain the thing with the cheese," Heather had answered, smirking. "The thing with the cheese is a sacred Berserker tribe tradition passed down unchanged through the centuries."

"Meaning you don't know what's up with the cheese either."

"Not a clue."

"Didn't think so."

"Both of us against that thing, though? Hardly fair. It doesn't stand a chance, does it?"

In no time at all, they'd had Berserkers falling over each other to volunteer, and off into the woods a dozen or so warriors, including Berk's chief and the Berserkers', had gone.

"And haven't we just charged up the mountain all by ourselves?" Astrid points out now. "Heather, I don't want to fight that thing on uneven ground. Did you see that tail? Those shoulders?" She trusts Heather's lead, but she still wishes for a long staff to test the ground ahead of her. "What are we doing up here?"

"It'll just take a minute," Heather says breezily, carrying on ahead.

"You said that twenty minutes ago."

"Astrid. Seriously." But she turns around with a grin, green eyes bright in the sun. "As long as we're out here, you've gotta see – aha! Now I know where we are! One of my people found them the other day. Just over here…"

"_Now_ you know?" Astrid rolls her eyes, but she takes Heather's hand and lets her friend boost her over a tall rock, scrambling down the short cliff face on the other side.

The glittering sea spreads out before them as Astrid looks up, shining bright enough to make her squint and raise one dusty hand to dim the glare. There's not a sail or a shadow to darken it as far as she can see. Good. She'd have made the climb up here just to see that, since Stormfly's in no shape to fly for another day or so. That shimmering expanse of sea says their dragons are safe, hidden away for now but able to come home one day, hopefully soon, and that they haven't been followed here.

She turns to Heather to say so, but her friend lifts a hand, one finger raised _attention_, and points.

Astrid looks down.

"Oh!" she gasps, feeling her jaw drop and an involuntary smile spread over her face.

The rock beneath her feet and the makeshift stairs of the cliff face are covered in black dragons.

Dragons – _Night Furies!_ – each of them different, full of life and movement and personality; they yawn and pounce and startle and play. The mountain wind has smudged their lines slightly, but it's been a dry summer, and no rain has fallen to wash them away, leaving them bold and dark, drawn in a familiar hand.

"They were here!" Astrid whoops loud enough to echo, punching a fist into the sky. Relief pours through her like someone's taken a pitcher and upended it over her head, cool and delicious in the glaring sun. "Hiccup, you were here! Oh, you've gotta be here somewhere, where…ha! There you are! Look, Heather, that's them!"

Among the faces she's never seen before – could there really be so many Night Furies out there? Have Hiccup and Toothless found an entire flock? No _wonder _they haven't come back to Berk! – she spots the familiar lines of Toothless' form. Close beside him, and where else would he be, after all, there's a smaller, tailless dragon mostly like a Night Fury, but with a scribble of fur around its head and peculiar paws.

Hiccup doesn't really understand what he looks like, Astrid knows. She suspects the feral boy doesn't care; he knows who he is inside, and there's no point arguing with him. He actually does bite.

Besides, it's not like Astrid can draw herself any better. Who is she to judge?

"They're all right!" Astrid hears her voice echo off the mountainside, probably telling that spike-tailed dragon exactly where they are. So what? Her strangest friend is alive, and he was _right here_, right where she stands! It's all she can do not to tumble down this mountain, leap onto Stormfly's back, and tear away into the sky, back to Berk.

_Stoick, Stoick! _She can taste the words forming on her tongue. _He's back in the Archipelago, they both are, I just missed them! _She'll kick down Stoick's door if she has to, grab his hands and drag him into the light and tell him that his son is alive, is traveling, is flying, is with Toothless – and what can stop those two, together? Even Drago broke himself on the rock of them, trying.

Gods, to see the life come back to Stoick's eyes at the news! She has no right to be as worried for them as Stoick is; they're not her children. But they are her friends, however wary and tentative Night Fury and Wildfire may always be. They should have been part of her tribe – well, Hiccup at least, she can't imagine how Toothless would have come into the picture, and yet somehow she can't doubt it – and the Chief of Berk protects her own.

"So, this is him, yeah?" Heather asks, fascinated. She tips her head on one side, a hand on the stone face for balance, and examines the flock of charcoal Night Furies, better than a footprint. They've joked about painting _Heather was here _on the walls for Dagur to see, back on Berserker Island. The drawn dragons say _Hiccup and Toothless were here _even clearer. "Your wild dragon-boy? Figured it had to be, when Helgi came back talking about the mountain being claimed by ghost dragons. Honestly, I was starting to think he was something you'd all made up."

"He's real," Astrid answers, feeling – however briefly – like everything she's trying to solve has fallen into place with a single push. Like she's pulled out one pin and the whole ramshackle house has folded in on itself with barely a puff of dust to show for it. "And he's not mine. Come on, Heather, didn't I warn you about the lies Eret tried out on you, after he'd run out of Berkians to fall for them? I wouldn't make up something like Hiccup. He's where I got this." She taps a finger against the scar beneath her eye.

Everyone on Berk has some version of Hiccup's story, each more outlandish than the next. So Astrid had told her new friend the truth first, spinning out the tale in the darkness between bed and cot, before Snotlout or someone got to her.

_Stoick's son was taken by dragons as a baby. They kept him. He grew up with them, with a Night Fury as…his shadow, I suppose. It's like they're part of each other. He's one of them now. He sounds like a dragon, moves like one, hunts and plays and fights like one, wilder than any of Berk's dragons, him and Toothless both. Clever and wary and funny when you understand him, fierce as wildfire – I'll show you in the morning, Fishlegs put him in the _Book_…_

"You really like the guy, don't you?" Heather says with a narrow, slightly bitter grin.

"Yeah, well, I – wait, no," Astrid stops like she's stubbed her toe, peering at her friend. "Ew. _Heather_. Don't you start too!"

She saw that expression _way _too many times a couple of summers back, when no one had really seen Hiccup for what he truly is. When all the village knew was that Stoick's son had come back to Berk, all grown up and strange, and surely about to return to them any day now, to take his place as the chief's heir. Astrid thanks the gods now she'd been too busy tearing her hair out, trying to talk to Hiccup and get over how much Toothless scared her, to pay much mind to that little rumor. How damn hard did she have to work to earn her place, that even a fantasy could so easily push her aside?

To say nothing of the – few, but memorable – _nastier _insinuations, about a girl with more important things to worry about than lovers, and a boy the next best thing to a beast.

Astrid threw a few punches. The whispers stopped, as far as she knows. But there are always more punches where those came from.

Rolling her eyes, Astrid repeats, "He's a _dragon_. Not…whatever you're imagining."

Heather raises her hands in mock surrender, conceding. "I _have _to meet this guy at some point, Astrid."

"One day, I promise," Astrid swears, a cloud falling over her soaring surge of joy. Alive, yes. Had she doubted it? Drago had _hurt _them in ways she could never understand, and what if Hiccup had given up on Berk for good – or worse? She knows the life her strangest friend leads is dangerous, but she's seen him and Toothless fight, she's seen them pull off miracles. He's got a Night Fury standing guard over him, after all.

And yet, there's always the possibility that Wildfire and Night Fury will vanish from her life without warning, the same way they'd come. That they'll disappear over the horizon the way Finn did, the way Stoick might have on one voyage or another. That she'll look back, years from now, and remember this time only as a brief, weird interlude that changed her world and left it that way.

"He's just…never here," is all she says. To Heather, she could say more, and perhaps she will tonight. But not out on a bright, bare mountainside, with Berserkers she doesn't really know probably calling for them any moment now, a hostile dragon still to hunt like it's the bad old days again.

One of the things Astrid loves most about her best friend is that Heather, unlike some people she can name, knows when to let a conversation go. "Must be weird for Stoick," is all she says, taking a closer look at Hiccup's drawing of himself and his dragon-twin.

"Yeah. You have no idea. And thanks for showing me this, but now can we get back to solid ground?"

* * *

Astrid knows the sound of Berk's forests on a good day. She knows to listen for the small, fluttering birds that eat seeds and little bugs, and pick out their warning calls as a hawk or owl takes to the sky. She knows the distinctive calls of crows and ravens, the raucous cries of at least a dozen kinds of gulls that pass over her home. She can track crickets by their rasping song and the sound of running water to any of the small streams and pools hidden in the woods. Sometimes there are frogs. She knows how to listen to the people around her, and pick out those who aren't supposed to be there.

She knows how to listen for dragons, whether they're hunting her or roaming Berk's forests freely under the peace.

This isn't Berk, but when all those sounds go silent, smart warriors listen harder.

"Wait," Astrid says, her voice low, raising a hand and beckoning for the attention of the Berserker hunters spread out in a long line, scattered and half-hidden in the trees. She doesn't know this forest, but she knows the feeling of all the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

A Berserker she doesn't know by name grunts. "Hear it," the man agrees. Astrid assumes he's scowling, but he could be eating lunch for all she can see through his giant, bristling beard. Thick black hair, a double fistful of pine needles and scraps of bracken already caught in it, covers anything but a pair of oddly bright blue eyes. Man looks like he's wearing a haystack as a rain cloak. "They know."

On Astrid's other side, Heather signals to her people, and they close in on her as quietly as they can. "Be ready," she warns. "Circle up."

No crack or waver shows in her voice, but Astrid catches the glance Heather throws at her, and nods agreement. _You're doing fine._

Alone among everyone here, possibly among everyone in the Archipelago, Heather was never trained to fight dragons. She grew up on the sea roads, trailing along with the convoy who'd taken her in – been _paid _to take her in, she knows now – never with land to defend or an arena to fight in. She was taught to fight people, to fend off raiders stealing cargo and sometimes to steal from others, not slay dragons diving from the sky.

Her tactics are sound, though. This dragon – Astrid wishes they had a name for it, but even Fishlegs had shrugged – isn't attacking to steal food. If it was, why would it go for women carrying water-yokes over their shoulders, or loggers, or Stormfly at the head of Berk's flock? It had stepped on the twins' bedamned cheese without even noticing it. Stormfly loves cheese. (Cheese does not love Stormfly. Astrid knows this now.)

And those are just the attacks Astrid knows about. Strange as it seems – it goes against everything she's learned about dragons – it seems to be deliberately targeting groups.

So they've given it a group to go for, out in the wilds and away from reinforcements… Bait, and Astrid can only hope it's not smart enough to realize.

Boar spears and battle-axes and at least two crossbows bristle out on all sides, hiding the sackcloth bundle at all their heels, and the hunting party waits. Astrid counts off her heartbeats, steadying them, feeling her pulse in her hands gripped tight around the hilt of her favorite axe. She's grateful for the loose braid she'd scooped her hair into that morning – in peace, it's fine, in battle she doesn't need her long hair in her eyes – as she scans the forest floor for raised roots that might snag her foot when she leaps. There are rocks that might crack her shoulder if she's thrown to the ground; she marks them. There are two easy corridors between the trees where a heavyset dragon might charge, and a gap in the canopy above them.

The men and women at her back are all but strangers, the forest around her unfamiliar, the foe awaiting her a mystery, and yet Astrid sets her feet with perfect confidence, the habits of years of battle singing through her.

What a letdown it's going to be if this thing _doesn't _take the bait…

Astrid realizes that the heartbeat thrumming through her boots is nothing of the sort only an instant before the creature breaks cover with a roar.

"Scatter!" Heather yells as branches crack and shredded vines fly, and her people spring away like gulls before an arrow.

Berserkers flick away like water hit by a stone as a heavy-set dragon with a powerful tail, held high, lunges at them. The creature is the dark red of old blood, darkening almost to black in the shadows, and small copper-gold eyes glare out from beneath the shadow of mantled wings. Thick tusks sweep out long arcs as it tosses its head, smashing away branches and brambles. Broken edges whip across its face and sides, slowing it not at all. In an instant, it's through them, burning straight for Heather, who holds her ground with her axes braced before her, teeth gritted, determination shining on her shock-pale face.

Eyes squinted shut, squealing, it rears up and its foreclaws snap out, clacking shut a handbreadth from Heather as she ducks away from it like a blink. Fast, clever hands spin her folding axes, locked into a whirling quarterstaff, like a wheel, chop-chop-chop-chopping down handclap-quick. Metal screams against dragon scales as the beast spins, as awkward and heavy on the ground as it looks, deflecting Heather's strike with its crab-like foreclaw and a howl.

"Hey!" Heather yells at it, cracking the flat of the blade against a tusk. "Eyes on me, ugly! Where'd you come from, huh? Keep – your – claws – off – my – people!" she shouts, lunging and striking, lunging and striking, springing from foot to foot like she's dancing across the deck of a pitching ship, always one step ahead away from the heavyset dragon trying to smash her down.

With a roar and a blast of flame that scorches past its tusks, the beast swings its head into her, knocking the axes from her hands. One of the blades wedges deep into the bone, and it shrieks.

But the blow drives Heather back, sends her stumbling with an oath as foul as Zippleback gas; and the wounded dragon rears up for an instant before smashing one foreclaw down.

Heather throws herself to the ground, rolling and scrambling, and from a point just behind its shoulder that she hopes is a blind spot, Astrid leaps.

It goes against all her old training to drop her axe, but she needs both hands as she catches a spike so much like Stormfly's and braces a boot against blood-red scales, only the span of a breath to climb, _climb!_ She moves on instinct more than thought, her body knowing what to do; she has fought dragons close-up, but since then, she's sat astride a dragon's back and learned to move _with _it. She has swarmed over Stormfly's back knowing her grip might mean her life someday.

Someday is today, and this is no friendly, forgiving Stormfly. This is a stranger to her and an enemy, a furious, wild beast –

But is it?

Astrid's groping hand falls on battered leather as the dragon howls and shakes itself like a yak beset by flies, trying to throw her off. A slice of shadow cuts across the corner of her eye, and Astrid yells in wordless defiance as she sees that powerful, dart-tipped tail rear up like a snake poised to strike, faster than her eye can see –

Chains rattle before it can lash down, and the dragon stumbles, pulled backwards by the chains thrown across the base of its tail, dragged down and back by the Berserkers pulling on it. When it tries to turn and flame at them, Heather's there to draw its eye again, axe blades flashing. Astrid kicks it in the side with a shout, and its blast of smoky flame catches nothing but a tussock of uprooted grass.

They have it surrounded, outnumbered, right where they wanted it, but every warrior in this clearing fights with the grim determination of those outmatched but with nowhere to run.

Astrid can't turn to look – she must trust those who fight alongside her, trust Heather to keep its attention divided, trust her own body to _work _as she swarms over this beast's shoulders, feeling jagged scales snag on her tunic and her armor.

There is no ground to hit, there is no gulf of air below her, there is nothing beyond the dragon's shoulders before her and the leather beneath her hand. Like flying. Like flying. Every frantic breath a snarl, teeth gritted and bared, Astrid holds on tight and rides this creature down like it's nothing more than some cousin of Stormfly's getting stroppy.

She has spent ages yelling at her dragonriders to _check your straps!_, testing and checking and tending the leather of Stormfly's harness. As wings beat over her head, it goes against all her new training to draw her knife from her belt, pull this out-of-place band of leather taut, and saw her blade through it.

But she does.

The leather is old and worn and battered, as tough as year-old meat, but Astrid sat up half the night sharpening this blade until Heather threw the only pillow at her and swore she'd do worse if Astrid didn't leave it alone. The harness, if that's what it is, _rips._

The broad band tears over the beast's right shoulder, coming free in Astrid's hands as she hauls it up and the dragon bucks wildly, shrieking. It makes a terrible _sucking _sound, hidden wounds popping open as the thin spikes nailing the band down are ripped away. Even as Astrid feels herself lose her seat, thrown in an instant from the dragon's wounded back, she knows she's going to regret seeing the festering punctures across the creature's shoulders.

She hits the forest floor with a _thump_, dropping the warped, perverse harness with a retch and reaching out blissfully empty hands; her knife is gone. Before she can take a single breath, Heather's there, on her feet again, pulling her from the dragon's shadow.

From the edge of the clearing, they can only stare, Astrid's shoulders against Heather's chest, the older girl's arm around her waist under the cover of a slightly scorched tree. The wounded dragon staggers and blows and roars as a handful of Berserkers, leaving their comrades to keep its tail pinned, circle it. The creature brandishes its tusks and snaps its foreclaws out at them, and they jump away shouting warnings – "Look out, look out!" and "'ware fire!"

With a lurching moan, the dragon claws at the torn-up earth. It raises its head, nostrils flaring, and stumbles across the clearing before coming to a stop.

It scents the air. Its eyes open. They fix on Heather – Astrid can feel its gaze go over her head like an arrow.

Roaring, smoky flame blazing in its half-open jaws, it tears its tail free from the chains and charges.

_THUD-THUD-THUD-THU… _and before it takes five steps, it collapses. Earth sprays up around it as its heavy jaw hits the ground, tusks carving deep gashes into the soil. That fire vanishes, snuffed out between teeth and tongue. Its wings, drawn up tight against its spine, flop out wide and helpless, and its deadly tail wavers like the last drunkard heading home alone.

The dragon goes down hard and fails to rise.

For a moment, everything's silent.

"Nameless _gods!_" Heather blurts out; Astrid can feel her friend's heart racing fast enough to blur. "You people did this _all the time?_"

Astrid lets herself sag into Heather's arms and laughs like she's crying. She goes into battle knowing every fight could be her last, but not this one. Not today.

The Berserkers cheer, slapping each other on the back and waving their fists in the air with all the pride of battle-brawlers who haven't won a good honest fight in too long.

* * *

The dragon doesn't get back up. It lies there in the dirt, canted uncomfortably onto its left shoulder, its face in the earth up to its drifting eye, and trembles.

"Damn, this is an ugly thing," a redhaired woman nursing a bruise across half her face complains. "What's wrong with it? Didn't hit it that hard."

"I don't know," Astrid says, crouching down to its level. it's a relief to have her axe back in her hand; the dragon seems barely conscious, but she'd rather not die to a dragon ambush minutes after surviving one. "It's not looking at me. See? No one got in a blow to its head?"

A wave of denial goes around the clearing, and someone says, "Chief?"

"No, I was just trying to keep its attention." Heather turns over the crumpled leather harness with the toe of her boot. "Astrid, what is this?"

"Uh, Chief?"

"Yes?" Astrid and Heather chorus, and they smirk at each other.

"Got a problem here." A thin man with straggly blond hair, his face drawn down in a perpetual frown, peers around the creature's bulk. "Dragon that hit the village this morning, Farre stuck a spear in it, yeah?"

Heather says, "Yeah…" like she knows she's not going to like what comes next.

The blond man points. "No wound."

Everyone clusters around to look where he's pointing. The creature is covered in scars, but no fresh spear wound marks its flank.

Astrid and Heather trade identical looks, knowing what the other is thinking without a word spoken.

_There's another one._

And dragons stick together…

A roar reverberates through the forest, and everyone freezes.

"Here we go again," Heather mutters. "All right, people. Practice is over."

* * *

But practice pays off, and the _second _thorn-tailed dragon is no smarter than its friend, just as angry, and just as quickly weakened when Astrid climbs to its back and tears the identical strap from its identically damaged shoulders.

"I think that one kept going a little longer," Heather says, somewhat shakily, as she reemerges from the underbrush. Pulling scorched twigs from her hair, she whistles with amazement and relief. "Everyone all right?"

"I am. They're not," Astrid says, grimacing at the shuddering, almost delirious pair of dragons. The first one is scratching at its scabby scales like it's trying to peel them off, except it can't find its own side. It kicks feebly at the air. The Berserkers, on the other hand, seem quite pleased to brush off their own shallow wounds as nothing, as long as they can tattle on each other to Sefi. Cutbalm awaits the slowest storyteller.

"So? I know you like dragons, Astrid, but good riddance." Heather comes over to stand at Astrid's side, one hand on her shoulder where she's knelt to look closer. "Oh, there's that look. Your eyes go all sharp, and the corner of your mouth goes just like that –" She taps a finger on Astrid's unscarred cheekbone, and Astrid hurriedly unwrinkles her face. "What are you seeing?"

The second dragon tries to raise its head, wings paddling through the air like full-size oars in the hands of a six-year-old, going every which way but steady, sometimes missing the ground and sometimes digging awkward furrows through it. Its eyes roll far back in its head, and it flames at the ground beneath its tusks like a smoky sigh. It's almost like they're sick, but how can they be? Minutes ago, these two were up and fighting; the Berserkers still haven't caught their breath from the battle. Astrid's never seen _anyone _fall ill that fast. Overnight, sure, but not in the time it takes to climb a tree.

"These two should not be here," Astrid says firmly. "We looked all over this island, you and me. We wouldn't have brought your people here if there'd been dragons already. No fair fighting them for space if they were here first. And these two, they're not local. Fishlegs didn't recognize them."

"Is he still chasing down Eret's crew for dragon stories?"

"Oh, all the time, _Book _in hand." She wants to smile. Some of Eret's men have been known to hide in recently emptied barrels of fish and remember urgent errands on the other side of the island when they see him coming.

Astrid catches herself pulling on the end of her braid. Gods _damn _it. What is she, eleven? She stops. "When did you guys start seeing them?"

"A couple of weeks ago. You don't think this is a coincidence, do you?" That's what Astrid likes about Heather. She's sharp. She keeps up. "You think they're tied up with my stupid little brother and that fleet of dragon trappers."

"They've got to be," Astrid answers, shaking her head. "I mean, there's no way Dagur, all by himself, came up with something like _that._ That's ugly."

A Berserker picks up one of the spike-studded leather bands, and both chiefs cry out, "Careful!" at the same time.

"No' t' fret," the man says with a grimace. "Nasty thing, en't it? What's it fer?"

Astrid stands up and stretches out her hands for it, and he lays it out flat, spikes up, across them. The spikes are broad at their base, jutting out above the band with what looks like breath-thin glass vials fit into them. They clink softly when Astrid's hands tremble in battle-rush or disgust. Dark with wear where they'd sunk into the dragons' hide, the spikes narrow abruptly, as thin as pine needles, their points wickedly sharp.

"Gods, that _stinks_!" Heather covers her nose with one hand. "Smells like my old captain's boots after they finally fell apart. Man never took them off. We threw them overboard, and I swear the fish died for leagues around – _Astrid!_"

Just a sniff is enough to make her want to cut off her own nose, but there's a sharp, nasty, rotten, and familiar odor on the bloody points of the spikes. "I've smelled that before," she chokes out, passing the leather band back to the Berserker, who doesn't look happy about it. "Ugh – bury that or something. _Deep. _Rocks on top. Don't touch the spikes! They're poisoned."

"No chance," the man mutters, sidling away like the thing in his hands might catch on fire. Behind him, the other hunters are wrapping chains around the two strange dragons, binding their paws together and trying to chain their jaws shut. It would probably help if anyone wanted to touch them.

"How do you know?" Heather asks, and calls, "I'll do it, if you want," to people who suddenly develop masterful dragon-jaw-tying abilities in front of their new chief.

"Back on Berk, we found a poisoned arrow in a dead Nadder." No matter how many of Berk's dragons she saves, Shorty will still be lost. "Those black ships shot him down. That _hypocrite! _I'm going to wring his skinny _neck!_"

Balling her hands into fists, Astrid growls, "I'll bet you anything this is Grimmel's work. Sneering at me and mine for taming and riding dragons – oh, I knew he was allied with that slaver Drago Bludvist, of _course _he's got dragons of his own, doing his dirty work! And I bet that –" She nods at the leather straps, which three sensible women are poking into one of the furrows the crashing dragons tore up, sword-tips flicking them along like something untouchably foul. "– has got something to do with it. Sneaking, smiling, lying poisoner!"

_I am a warrior of Berk, I am a chief who leads with honor, I will not go over there and kick those dragons in the gut, they are not their master, it is probably not their fault –_ she chants to herself,and yet Astrid's so, so tempted.

"And if they're working together," Heather catches up with her, "Grimmel and Dagur, I mean, do you think Grimmel sent these two here? But why?"

"Or Grimmel trained them, and Dagur sent them off to find you. He's the one holding the grudge. Stormfly can track people by scent, and these look like Strike-class. Spiky." A horrible thought strikes her. "Are we sure there's not a third?"

Everyone goes silent. A single chain clinks.

"You are just so much fun today," says Heather, after a bird's call breaks into the silence. "We'll stay alert. What are we going to do with these two?"

"Kill 'em!" one of the Berserkers yells, waving her sword in the air.

"No!" Astrid blurts out, but the woman's already talking over her. "Ain't havin' them come after my daughter again, and what if they lead Dagur –" She stops to spit thickly in the dirt. "– back 'ere?"

"Yeah, Berk's lot might be friendly enough, but look at these beasties," someone else says. "Mean-lookin' things, aye? Dangerous."

"Chief said it, good riddance. Make it quick –"

Astrid draws herself up, scowling. "Absolutely not," she snaps. "Look at them."

"Aye, lookin' I am, and nasty critter I see."

"Astrid," Heather says, putting a hand on her shoulder again. Her pale green eyes are kind, but hard, and her slim jaw is set firmly. "I know it's important to you that dragons and Vikings stop killing each other, but they attacked us. They would have killed someone. We can't just let them go to try again, and are you really going to stick around and train them like you tamed Stormfly? You have a war to fight."

In the dirt, the two dragons twitch and moan, pawing at the earth, tails flopping weakly. Someone's lashed the bulbous tip of each tail, with its needle-sharp stinger, to each dragon's hind leg. They're ugly, dangerous creatures, working for her enemy. That they would have killed everyone in this clearing, Astrid doesn't doubt. But –

"I can't stand here and execute them," she refuses. "I can't. And I won't watch you do it, either. You're better than that. Look, if I had to kill one of them in pitched battle, to protect others, I wouldn't hesitate. But not like this, Heather. I know it's your island, and your people at risk, and it's your decision, but please – you weren't there," she says suddenly, glancing up from the downed dragons and into her friend's eyes. Gods, it's a gift to have a friend who she knows will listen to her. Heather won't judge her for trying to find another way.

"It was bad enough in war, having to put down the wounded. I don't ever want to have to do that again – they'd _cry_, Heather, they _knew_, and we didn't listen because if we heard them, what did that make us? And now that we're at peace, now that I know – and you do too! – that they think, that they're _people_, because they are…Drago's creatures were slaves, Heather! They would have killed me, but they didn't have a choice. What if these two didn't either?"

_Don't make me kill them, Heather_, she doesn't say. _You didn't fight this war; don't bloody your hands with it now._

With a sigh, Heather runs a hand through her dark hair and says, "All right, Astrid. But I'm not letting them go."

Finally, they agree that the Berserkers will keep the dragons chained up somewhere, and when Berk is safe again, Astrid will come back and try to get them under control.

"But if they break loose and attack someone," Heather adds while two of her people run off back to the village to get a cart to move them on, and maybe more Berserkers to get them into it, "we're going to stop them, you understand?" She meets Astrid's eyes not as a friend, but as a chief with people to protect. "Whatever it takes."

"I understand," Astrid nods, knowing Heather won't go behind her back and kill them anyway. "I'd do the same."

But sooner than anyone expects, one of the runners bounds back into the clearing, barely out of breath. Astrid wonders if the deeply tanned, dark-haired woman runs in the mornings, too, and if she ever takes the dozens of tiny braids out of her hair. But she doesn't get a chance to ask.

"Chief Astrid, there's something going on back in town," the lanky woman reports, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Your friends, they're looking for you."

"Are they being really, really loud about it?" Astrid asks, sighing.

"How did you know?"

"They're always loud."

Heather grins, that quirky little smile that always makes Astrid smile too, even if she doesn't know the joke yet. "If they're quiet, they're up to something. C'mon."

* * *

Astrid walks right into an argument, of sorts.

"Please?"

"No."

"_Pleeeeeease?" _whines Ruffnut, sagging dramatically, her arms waving over her head. Astrid's seen similar performances out of her when they were all a lot younger, when someone, almost certainly her brother, convinced Ruffnut that the best way to get a second helping was to lie on the floor and hold her plate up in the air. Sometimes it had worked, but only when someone carrying a full plate tripped over her.

"Still no."

"C'mon –"

"I got it!" Tuffnut yells, tackling Fishlegs and bouncing off. "Oof."

Fishlegs, his arms wrapped around something squirming against his chest, does not look amused. "I told you guys, leave him alone."

Snotlout, leaning against a wall nearby like he just happens to be here, isn't helping. What else is new? "Pretty good bounce there, Tuff'. Do it again!"

"All right, what are we fighting over?" Astrid cuts in before Tuffnut can take another run at Fishlegs. "Hey, Fishlegs, we caught that attacking dragon. Turned out there were two. If you want to draw them for the _Book_, Heather's people are bringing them back here."

"What? You went off and fought an awesome dragon without me? No fair!"

"Then wake up earlier, Snotlout," Heather swats back at him. "What've you got there?"

The thing in Fishlegs' arms squeals, wriggling, and Astrid catches a glimpse of little wings waving.

"Never mind. It's a Terror," she says.

"He turned up just now," Fishlegs says, unfolding his arms.

"And so why –" _did you catch him_, Astrid doesn't bother asking as the tiny dragon, jaw gaping in a silly smile, swarms over Fishlegs' broad shoulders and leaps at her. "Hey, little guy, I know you." Astrid catches the forest-dappled Terror in one arm with the ease of long practice: she was the first human friend Berk's Terrors ever made, and even though Terrors can forget they have tails, they've never forgotten that. She scratches beneath his jaw as he wriggles, all his legs in the air. There's something tied to one of them. "You are…you're Ascanius' buddy, aren't you? The one Eret sighs about every time he sees?"

To Heather, she adds, "He keeps saying dragon trappers shouldn't have a mascot, and Ascanius always says they're not trappers anymore, and then Eret rolls his eyes a lot." She thinks, snapping her fingers away when the overexcited Terror tries to bite them. "No – Soren, that's his name. No biting, Soren. What are you doing here, huh?"

She doesn't expect an answer from the Terror. Sometimes she wishes dragons could speak in words, but she's puzzled her way through too many peculiar conversations with small children to wish Terrors could; Terrors never seem to grow up.

She's not expecting an answer from Snotlout, either, but that's what she gets. "Pretty sure he's for you."

"And you know that because…"

Snotlout rolls his eyes and points like he's doing her a huge favor. "'cause it's written on his side."

Heather peers over Astrid's shoulder curiously. "Hate to admit it, but Snotlout's right."

"Hey!"

"Yeah, and that's why Fishlegs wouldn't let us hold him –" Ruffnut complains.

Sure enough, someone has inked Astrid's name on the little dragon's scales, smeared from his flight from Berk. Ignoring the chatter all around her, except for Heather's quietly volunteered hands to untangle the message from Soren's hindleg as she holds him still, Astrid moves Ascanius' pet Terror to her shoulder and unfolds Eret's message.

It takes her a moment to decode the former trapper's shaky runes. Norse isn't Eret's first language, and he writes like it whenever he has to.

It takes her a moment more to understand it. The words are impossible, nonsense, madness, but as irrevocable as a brand pressed against her eyes. The drawings on the mountainside and the victory in the forest, the rush of battle waged and won, all of today washes away in a grey haze like days of rain that just won't stop.

Her world narrows to the torn scrap of paper in her hand and the message there, a world without Soren licking her ear or Heather's steadying presence at her side or Fishlegs fending off the twins or Snotlout loudly comparing the twins to the geese stalking around and biting people's knees. There's just the war-drumbeat of her pulse in her ears, dull and insistent and very far away, the silence of the sky breaking open over her head, the creeping darkness of the sun vanishing down the gullet of a wolf.

"Astrid?" Heather says, in the tone of someone who's said it many times before. "Astrid, are you in there? What –"

Astrid looks up to find her friends all staring at her. Her hands are cold. So is her throat. She wants to tear down the world, crawl back into bed and wake up this morning just past and try this all again…

"Berk is taken," she says, her voice as flat as a sword's blade. She could step right over it, and she must, but there'll be death in the air as soon as she picks it up. "Dagur's won."

"_What?!"_ five voices chorus in horrified, baffled unison. Their faces flood with shock and anger and distress and fear and disbelief and indignation and denial as Astrid opens her mouth and lets the rest of it fall from her tongue like stones.

"The ships have landed. My people are locked up. Eret and his men are hiding."

She considers.

"I lost Berk," Astrid says.

She crumples up the note, dropping it without a second glance. She pulls Soren down from her shoulder, handing the little dragon off to Fishlegs. It's not his fault.

It's hers.

And she walks away.

* * *

She has failed.

Hundreds of years of chiefs, holding Berk against everything the world threw against them, dragons and winter and storms and rival tribes and more dragons and sickness and starvation and fire and raids, never shifting, never yielding, and after all that? All it took to bring down Berk?

One little girl who thought she was worthy of being a chief.

When Berk's story is told, is this how it ends? With the first chief in three hundred years to lose her island and her tribe – and not even to the dragons they'd fought for so long! At least the dragons had been worthy foes; at least there'd been honor in fighting them.

For years, Astrid had felt most alive on the battlefield, racing to the defense of her people. In her bones, she knew she was willing to put her body between those she had a duty to and enemies who could and would kill her. She'd known she'd die there someday. Berk's chiefs don't die quietly. And she'd been…not happy…well, maybe sometimes, in the furious heat of battle when everything had locked into place like a dance…but content. She'd known her purpose.

No matter what, she'd held her warrior's honor up like a lantern, guarded by steel but lighting her way. _I will defend my people. _She'd even thought it was bright enough to guide others.

And now she has lost Berk. The shock of it is like having her arm torn from her shoulder – there was a piece that was a part of her, something that was always supposed to be there, that she used and relied on every day, and suddenly it was gone. The pain of it is a blunt, sickening pulse: only when she looks does she see the blood spilling from the wound.

She has failed the entire long line of chiefs who came before her, who held their island no matter what. Even when the war ended, when Hiccup and Toothless made an ending for them – and she has failed them, too! _I will defend my people._ She was going to keep them welcome on Berk no matter what, and now that haven has turned to smoke and ashes, trodden under the heavy, befouling boots of men who'd kill them both in an instant.

_Kill on sight, kill on sight, kill on sight_.

Even then, with the laughter of dragons in the sky, they'd had Berk.

In the end, Astrid knows with sick certainty, she really wasn't good enough. All the sneers and the dismissive comments she's ever heard pour down over her, each a stone in her cairn: _just some stray, too small, too young, too radical _– and hadn't that been funny, that last, after she'd spent all her life treading firmly in the footsteps of all the warrior chiefs before her? Duty and honor, but war and death; was it so wrong to hope for a better way?

Too _female_.

Stupid little girl, falling for all their tricks one by one, avoiding one trap thinking she's so clever and just running straight into the next one. At every turn, she's believed what her enemies want her to believe, done what they wanted her to do – what difference does it make, all her defiance? How has hope led her so wrong, that she has failed in the one thing she _swore _to do with every breath?

Her enemies have gotten rid of her – she got rid of herself! They've gotten everything they want, and how long before they come here too?

Berk is lost. Her home is taken.

Just an island, just land, but it's land she and everyone she knows has bled onto and built on, standing firm in the knowledge that their grandparents stood on the same ground once, hoping for them the same way they hope for their own grandchildren, one distant day.

She can't even say that she protected her people but lost the island; she could live with that. She knows Berk is its people, not its stone. They'd be Berkians anywhere, just as Heather's people are Berserkers anywhere. But she didn't even manage that.

Some chief. She ran off with their dragons and left the people she swore to protect – _I will defend my people! –_ in harm's way. She wasn't even _there!_ She should have been, fighting until her last breath.

What good is she?

Oh, she is _stupid_ – she _knew _she'd forgotten something! Why hadn't she slowed down and _thought_? _Dagur_, of course, that impulsive, reckless, impatient, self-centered, delusional _idiot!_ She'd taken her eye off the enemy she knew, distracted by ironclad ships and a dragon hunter with a creepy smile.

She ripped out their first line of defense – what had been the point of teaching all Berk's dragons to defend their home, if at the first sign of trouble, she took them away? She left her people to be conquered.

_I will defend my people._

Instead, she ran away.

_Coward_, Astrid curses herself, and _failure, _and slams a clenched fist into the wall.

It trembles beneath her blow as if she's actually strong enough to make a difference, but Astrid hisses at it, knowing it's a lie. It's a flimsy, half-built thing, only two boarded-up sides with cracks still showing between them, waiting to be patched shut with hard-packed mud and straw. Planted deep into the earth, poles trace out where the rest of the walls are going to go someday, wide spaces between them letting in the light and letting out the straw that's been kicked all around this enclosure.

The roof sways overhead, and behind her, Stormfly whines anxiously, scratching at the earth. Nothing binds the blue-dappled dragon here, except that Astrid asked her to stay, but clearly she's not even a good judge of _that_, either. The whole thing could fall down around Stormfly's wings any moment now.

"Should get out of here," Astrid mutters through clenched teeth, turning on a heel and pacing the few brutal, sharp steps across the rickety future goat stable. Maybe she'll just stay here. Maybe she'll walk a deep ditch into the dirt, and when she can't see over the sides anymore, she'll sit down in the dirt and vanish. An eternity in the dirt with goats tearing out her hair and bleating stinky breath into her face and eating her tunic sleeves sounds about right for a chief who lost her tribe. She can't be any less useful out there than she'd be in here.

"Go on, shoo!" she snaps, waving a hand in Stormfly's general direction. Since she's halfway through a turn, it hits one of the poles instead. It doesn't matter. She keeps going. "Go find someone smarter who deserves you. Gotta be someone out there who isn't gonna get you hurt and fly you into danger and make you carry her around on your back whenever she's too damn lazy to get on a ship like a real Viking."

_strrrrTT!_ Stormfly rustles, one wide, barely blinking golden eye following her back and forth, back and forth, around and around, and Astrid finds herself having to catch the wet sound that bubbles up into the back of her throat and clogs her nose, shoving it back down so hard her stomach roils.

She's moving in shadows, going nowhere, but she's not really here. She's still out in the sun, staring down at the grimy, badly-spelled scrap of paper in her hands as if it were a knife pressed to her throat. Let it cut, let it spill out all her lifeblood, she doesn't deserve to still be upright and breathing. She _lost her tribe_. She turned her back, and she let herself relax, and her enemies walked right in and took away everything and everyone she's ever loved.

Years of iron self-control keep the tears from spilling over – not since Finn died has Astrid allowed herself to cry anywhere someone might see her, and not at all if she can help it – but _this_…yes, this might finally deserve it.

And there she is. Nothing but a weak little girl after all.

"You're scaring Stormfly," a voice says, and Astrid growls a curse at it, pressing the heels of her hands to her forehead.

"Leave me alone," she snarls. "I quit."

It's such a small word. She should have said it long ago, before she got so overconfident that she thought _she _could win this. Some chief.

Soft sounds don't seem like an answer, and Astrid sulks furiously before looking around. She's not all that surprised to see Heather standing at Stormfly's shoulder, scratching under the Nadder's jaw and murmuring comforts to her. Stormfly's leaning into the older girl's hands, golden eyes half-closed, her spiked tail wavering uncertainly.

"Good. You keep her. She'll be safe with you."

"I'm not taking your dragon, Astrid," Heather says evenly. "Are you done?"

Sullenly, Astrid throws herself into a too-thin pile of straw. It hurts. Stone bruises her hip and straw digs into her thighs and back, and she doesn't care. "Obviously. What's there left to do? He's _won_, Heather, he has my home and my people and what was I doing while my village burned and soldiers took everyone I'm responsible for prisoner?"

She knows everyone on Berk. She can see them all as if they were resentful ghosts gathered around staring down at her, reaching out to her, begging for help in dream-thin voices. Coenric and Madge and Edda and Gull and Gustav and Bucket and Mulch and Gobber and Gothi and all the Nokkvessons and Eirikr and Selig and Ingeborg and Hilda and Nessa and Nixie and Myk and Myka and Tam and Denholm and Norge and all Eret's crew and Fishlegs' batty grandmother who only answers to _Lady _Ingerman these days and even Spitelout, dammit, and scores of others. Stoick. All her people. Hers. Captive and defeated.

"I was here. Nice and safe and patting myself on the back for being so clever, so yeah, I'm done. I'm way past done. Whatever Stoick saw in me, it went rotten, all right? Might as well set me out for the flies."

"That," says Heather, "is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Astrid jams straw into her hair. There. Now she looks as crazy as she feels.

"Oh yeah, you're done," Heather goes on, patting Stormfly one more time and coming over to join Astrid in the haystack. Astrid doesn't push her away because there's no point. Heather can do what she wants. "Are you really just going to sit down and give up? That's not the Astrid I know."

"The Astrid you know is clearly an idiot."

"The Astrid I know," Heather corrects her, poking her in the side, "is going to get over herself, stand up, and get back to work. She's not going to mope like a big mean boy stole her rag doll."

"Didn't have dolls," she mutters. "Gave me a knife."

"Hey. Look at me." When she doesn't, Heather grabs her chin and forces Astrid to do so, gently but forcefully. "Stop this. You don't – _we _don't – have time for it. This is a setback, and a big one, but it's not the end of the world. That message said your people were _captured_, right? Not dead? As long as they're alive and you are, there's a chance to change things. You taught me that."

Astrid grumbles, "Leave me alone. You too," she adds to Stormfly, who's peering down at her, whistling and burbling. She sounds like a distant, particularly baffled creek after a hard rain.

Heather doesn't; Stormfly doesn't move either, except to tip her head the other way. "Why do you think we're all standing here, huh? Look around. You know the only reason there's a village here? The only reason these people have a chance to start over? You know why _I'm _here? _You._"

She lets Astrid's face go only to tap a sharp finger against her breastbone. It echoes like Astrid's hollow inside. "You made me think I could lead. That I could be more than just the spare girl, smiling at traders when things were going well and picking dockside pockets when they weren't." It's not the first time Heather's admitted to stealing, when she had to. And sometimes when she was asked to. Sometimes just because.

"I saw you all but in charge, back on Berk, and it was like I'd been walking around with a sheet over my head all my life, and you'd whipped it right off. I wanted to live in _your _world, with a future. With no one telling us what we couldn't do, only what we _shouldn't_ do, but we could argue with them and do better if we wanted, because maybe they'd listen, maybe they were _wrong_! And gods know it hasn't been easy." She snaps a handful of straw pieces between her fingers, one at a time, and throws the halves away. Stormfly's eyes flick to follow them, then back to her rider. "I miss you. Every day I want to run back to Berk and go back to being your shadow."

"You –" Astrid says, and doesn't know what she means to say.

"Not in a bad way. I just felt like I belonged, with you. You saw me when I was no one, and I know I can talk to you about anything, which is why I know I can tell you that you, Astrid Hofferson, Chief of Berk, tamer and rider of dragons, are being really, really stupid right now."

"You weren't no one," is all Astrid can say. She wraps her arms over her head, feeling the coiling tangle of a tension headache pulling into a tight knot. There's something beating in her throat that wants to be free.

"And you're not a failure. You think I haven't been there? You know, I thought it was my fault, when the only family I had, even if they'd always told me I wasn't really theirs, started coughing and didn't stop until they stopped breathing? And there I was in the middle of all of it, like I was standing there firing out arrows."

Her voice goes tight and choked; Astrid lowers her arms and looks anywhere else, giving her friend what privacy she can, short of leaping up and running away, and she wouldn't do that. She'd rather rip nailed-down harnesses out of a dozen dragons; she'd do less harm. "I didn't know where I was going to go, what I was going to do, what was the point of it all, why I didn't just sail my little boat out into the deepest waters I could find and walk over the edge wearing all the heaviest pretties I hadn't used to bribe every healer I could find, 'til no one would even look at me."

Breath hisses out through Heather's teeth, and all Astrid can say is, "What stopped you?"

"Seemed permanent. I've never been…good…at permanent. But I'm trying now, all right? I just can't do it without you, Astrid, so I need you to get back up and get back to work. Punch you in the nose if I've gotta."

Heather makes a fist and bops her lightly on the nose, to Stormfly's chirruping amusement. "There. Wham. My stupid little brother stole a march on you, is all. We just gotta steal it back. Isn't stealing from him what we do?"

"Kinda."

"You know the Berserkers didn't believe in me, at first?"

"Yeah," Astrid grunts, remembering the overcast day she'd flown her friend to Berserker Island, armed only with her birthright and a tale of an island where they could start over, scouted just days before. It had taken everything Astrid had to hold Stormfly still and let Heather walk forward alone, hands open and far from the folding axe left behind on Stormfly's shoulder, into a sea of hard and wary faces.

"You don't know me," she'd said, "but you should have. This isn't my place, but it should have been."

For hours, Astrid had hung back, unable to add her voice to Heather's, to argue for her friend's right to lead. To do the work left so long undone. To make things _better_, as the two of them have sworn to each other to always do. All she could do that day, and the return visits on other days, was watch, looking at all these strangers so much like her own people. Before then, she'd only seen Berserkers when they were Dagur's soldiers, just terrified and angry eyes hidden under full-face helmets.

Heather goes on, her voice low and serious. "Sometimes they still don't. They fight with me all the time, over everything. But you know why I keep trying?"

"They're your people," Astrid answers flatly. _I will defend my people._

"No, silly. Well, yes, but… Because if I quit, you'd fly over here specially to kick my butt and get me back to work."

Heather stands up with Stormfly's help, using the Nadder's nose horn for balance. Brushing straw from her leggings and tunic, she strides over to the approximate doorway of the pen, scooping something up in her arms.

"You lost one battle," Heather says. "Be damned if I let my best friend lose the war. Fight _back_, Chief of Berk."

The familiar weight and warmth and scent of Astrid's bear cloak flops down onto her, and for a moment, Astrid wants nothing more than to hide her head beneath it like a little girl hiding beneath her quilt from the monsters in the night. They're roaring very proudly now, boasting of their victory as they descend on her home to take what's _hers_.

She can hide beneath her covers and let them, or she can get up and fight, even if the fight seems hopeless. It's the fight_. _Isn't that what she's for?

Astrid hasn't been wearing her cloak here on Heather's island, and so it smells like _Berk_. The forest and their hearth-fires, sea air and ship-tar, salted fish and sheep fleeces, the smoky fug of the Great Hall and the dry, scaly smell of dragons. The weight of it rests on her, but it's a weight she knows she can stand up beneath.

Burying her hands in the thick autumn-rich fur, Astrid takes a deep breath and lets it out again, slowly. She reaches for the bleeding wound in her soul where Berk was, and carefully, deliberately, grinds down into it. Gods, the failure hurts.

It makes her really, really _mad_.

_That's_ fire hot enough to fly on.

"I don't deserve you," Astrid says.

Heather laughs at her. "What's that got to do with anything? Get the hell up, Astrid, we've got payback to plan."

* * *

"What if we made 'em think Berk was haunted?" Ruffnut bugs her eyes out and waves her hands around her face, making _ooo-ooo_ noises. "Sneak around at night and howl under windows, fly away before they see us."

"Move all their mugs," her brother adds. "Turn all their clothes inside out. Add some stinger thorns."

"Fill all their shoes with jam. And bees. _Oooooo…_"

"Blow out candles they light, relight any lanterns they put out." Without looking, Fishlegs moves the nearest candle, one of many scattered around the room, making them all look like winter-night storytellers, before Tuffnut can demonstrate.

Astrid rests her chin on one hand, letting the twins' irrepressible craziness blow away the frustration. It's been building up in her ever since Snotlout and Fearsome got back from the scouting mission Heather had dispatched them on while Astrid was…not herself. The news isn't good. "Seems to me, guys, that some of these pranks sound familiar. Not sure they'll fool hardened soldiers, though. While you're at it, are you finally going to admit to the soup incident?"

"Nope."

"Wasn't us."

"Soup incident?" Heather hadn't been there for that one.

"You don't want to know."

The six of them are all crammed into Heather's little house, just to keep off over-helpful Berserkers. Astrid doesn't have time to argue with an entire tribe, not when she needs to get something moving now. Who knows how long they have before Dagur gets bored with his victory and starts challenging people to duels to the death, or before the soldiers and dragon trappers give up and burn down the entire village? And how many of the wild dragons will they capture and lock away on their ships in the meantime?

They've arranged themselves in a rough circle not because sometimes Berk's show-up-if-you-want tribal council sits around a table – usually when there's food involved – but because there's only so much space in here. Astrid's happy to crowd onto the bed with Heather, but it's in everyone's best interests that Snotlout and Fishlegs are kept out of arm's reach of each other. Snotlout's been known to pinch, and Fishlegs has been known to retaliate by just falling on him. It doesn't help that Snotlout and the twins are still wearing their helmets, but they look ridiculous without them.

"So everyone's locked up in the Great Hall?" Fishlegs says now, scribbling on a piece of slate he carries around. Having peeked at it already, Astrid knows that it's not a list of plans or a map of enemy positions on and around Berk: it's a drawing of the chained-up dragons now sleeping off what looks like nothing more or less than a hangover.

"Whole village, flooded with weird guys," Snotlout growls, pulling a face. "Trompin' around like they own the place, bunch of 'em at every door to the hall."

"How many?" Astrid asks again.

He shrugs. "Dunno. Stayed pretty far away, figured you guys would want some of the fighting, otherwise me and Fearsome woulda dealt with them all. Maybe seventy in the village? More on the ships. Here's your spyglass, Heather."

"Why thank you, Snotlout," Heather says, taking it back with an air of relief, and Snotlout sits up straight trying to look very noble.

Astrid closes her eyes and envisions Berk from the sky. "What about the ships?"

"Just the big ones left, and a couple of little flat-bottomed ferries. No idea where the rest went."

At last, a bit of good news. "So the twins might be onto something," Astrid muses.

"Of course we are! What are we onto?"

"We've got to get our people out," Astrid tries to explain the idea taking shape. It's still barely more than a cloud, but if she can get her hands on it, maybe her team can spin it up into a thunderhead. She'd like to call down some lightning on the people occupying their home, but her mismatched handful of dragonriders will have to do. "We're outnumbered, so we've got to get their numbers down. Now, we could do that all at once, but maybe we don't have to."

_What do we have?_ Astrid's making lists in her head. They have themselves, their dragons, the twin advantages of surprise and the sky. They know the terrain. They also have allies – Berk's Vikings, unarmed and locked up, but that could change. And they have Eret and his people, hiding in the forest where Astrid herself had sent them off to look for dragon traps. That's why they hadn't been in town when Dagur raided Berk and – ugh – won.

Unfortunately, _what do we need?_ is a tougher list. Snotlout's brought them some more information, but whatever plan they make here will probably need exact timing. Astrid needs Stormfly flying again; this is exactly what Astrid has been trying to train her dragonriders for since they got back from taking on Drago's fleet the first time, and a wicked, vicious part of her can't wait to put that practice into action.

They need weapons for their friends on Berk, and they need their friends free. They need Dagur's warriors off Berk, they need the captive dragons on the ships freed, they need the entire fleet gone for good – oh yes, and it would be nice if everyone didn't die in the doing of all this.

It started so well, that list.

"And you want to use the twins' pranks to do it?" Fishlegs asks, smudging away a bit of chalk. Astrid wishes she had time to take him up to that mountainside and show him Hiccup's drawings; he'd want to sit there and copy down them all, and he'd be as pleased as she was to know that the Wildfire was alive and well and here so recently.

"Sort of. Hey, Ruffnut, want to go find Eret?"

Ruffnut lights up. Astrid's pretty sure she likes making Eret uneasy more than she likes Eret himself, but apparently fun is fun. "Well, _yeah!_"

"They're looking for dragons, right?" Astrid opens an upturned hand to the group as if she had something there to show them. "But all the village ones are here, so that leaves them with the wild ones who didn't come with us."

"So they'll be wandering around in the forest –" Heather picks up beside her.

"– where _our _dragon trappers already are," Astrid finishes her sentence. "Ruff', Tuff', we're splitting up. I want you guys and Eret's crew to ambush, confuse, lose, terrify, trap, snare, and absolutely bamboozle anyone in our wilds who shouldn't be there. Whittle those trappers down, and scare 'em half to Helheim doing it. Think you can do that?"

"Oooh. So, uh, Chief, this would be, like, _official_ mayhem, yeah?" Tuffnut says earnestly, his eyes gleaming.

Playing along and ignoring the muffled choking sounds from beside her – they sound a lot like Heather trying not to laugh – Astrid raises a hand and intones, "You are both henceforth my official mischief-makers."

"_Excellent,_" the twins chorus, grinning their very best scary grins.

"That does mean you have to do what I tell you. Since you're official."

Ruffnut's jaw drops. "Wait, what? All the time? We have to think about this now!"

From one corner of the room, Snotlout scratches at the back of his head and then has to push his helmet back up so he can see out from under it. "Dagur's gonna hate that."

"Good," Heather says.

Astrid grimaces, remembering some of the stories she's heard from Dagur's own people. The Berserkers' current blacksmith is, unusually, a woman. Stocky and grim, she hammers metal as if it were her former chief's face beneath the blows, as if the sound of ringing iron would call back her husband to the new forge lit from his forge-fire. Dagur dragged him off on a mad quest for a Skrill – Astrid can confirm, because Dagur sulked off to Berk and screamed at her when he lost it. Apparently Hiccup and Toothless had gotten involved. But those two are easy to blame, hard to do anything about. The smith whose shackles hadn't held the lightning dragon? He never came home.

If Dagur will hurt his own people when he's angry, he won't hesitate to take that anger out on hers. And he has all of Berk held hostage.

"Dagur's gonna have his own problems," Astrid declares. "Fishlegs, Snotlout, I need you two to get our people out and get them armed. Actually, getting them armed will probably take care of the 'out' bit."

She scowls at them. She hasn't forgotten that Snotlout spoke up for her, but she needs him to keep on being better. "Talk to each other for once. I know you can. Figure out a plan that brings Berk out fighting and run it past me."

Fishlegs counts off the people in the room. "What about you?" He thinks about it for a moment. "Oh – are you going for the ships? Please say you're going for the ships, I can't bear to think of our dragons imprisoned in those terrible holds. I don't ever want to go down there again."

A cold fist settles in Astrid's stomach, hard as iron and as heavy. She remembers. She has a responsibility to those captives as much as to the Vikings locked away in their own Great Hall, and she can't let herself forget about them just because they can't cry out to her in words she understands.

Most people would call them nothing but animals.

Most people would be wrong.

"No," she says, as bitter as it is. "I haven't forgotten, but we don't have enough riders to fight our way through them. I can't get people out there yet, Fishlegs! Don't look at me like that."

Astrid takes a breath, steadying herself. One thing at a time, even if she's splitting her riders into three. Three things at a time. Four is just one thing too many. "If we can shut down this army on Berk, those ships aren't going anywhere. The five of us are not enough to shake down those ships – we only managed it before because they'd _lost!_ Their leader was down, their army in chaos. They lost control, and we moved in on that, so that's what we need to recreate. I hate it. I hate leaving them there even a minute longer, but once we have Berk, then we can get the dragons. All right?"

"Six."

"What?"

Heather folds her arms and raises a dark eyebrow, green eyes flat. "Six. _Six_ of us, Astrid, or were you planning on leaving me behind? You go with me, I go with you. You said it yourself."

"I –" Astrid stutters, knocked off her dive and momentarily at a loss for words. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see her riders hiding grins – or not – like grandmothers leaning out of their doors to listen to newlyweds argue. "But you don't –"

"– have a dragon to ride? Stormfly can carry me if she can carry you. And this being so important and all, I bet you can get some of Berk's friendlier dragons to carry riders. Fishlegs has – how many Gronkles?" Fishlegs holds up fingers. "Oh, eight now. He can't ride them all, so that's seven backs going spare."

"Six – Horrorcow's going to lay her eggs any day now, I don't want to move her again," Fishlegs frets. "But she's got a point, Astrid."

Heather smirks at her, affectionately enough, but her tone quickly turns serious. "Of course I have a point. I'm right. Don't even ask me if I can find volunteers. Look, we _owe _you, Astrid. Everyone here lost someone to Dagur's mad quests and stupid fights he didn't even win. We're part of this, for you…but for us too." She looks off into a future that – by the shadow over her face – Astrid doesn't want to visit.

"If Berk falls for good, you know they'll come after us next. And if you think you're going into a battle like this without me at your back, think again! Who's going to distract more of those attack dragons, if my stupid little brother and that Grimmel guy have them?"

"Me!"

"You haven't even seen them yet, Snotlout," Astrid tosses at him. "Put your hands down. Although, yeah, we should all go do that. Heather and I can talk you through how to fight them, just in case there are more." She hopes there aren't more.

But luck has not run her way, lately. Work will have to take its place.

"So what _are _you gonna be doing while we're being all official-like?" Tuffnut chimes in; the twins have been whispering to each other and giggling, and Astrid's mildly impressed that Tuff' was paying attention enough to notice she'd dodged the question.

Astrid feels her face freeze, her smile at Snotlout scrambling after the helmet he knocked off his own head fading. Ice drips from her voice when she answers, contained within this little room for now, but there's rage as hot as dragonfire right underneath. It's going to be quite the blast, when it breaks.

"I – _we_ – are going after Dagur. He'll go straight for us anyway, and we'll keep his attention off you."

It might not be strictly honorable to gang up on him, two against one. But even Astrid doesn't care about that. This isn't some show duel – Dagur _took Berk_. Took her people hostage. Threw _Drago Bludvist's_ dragon-enslaving army at her home. Astrid can live with an unfair fight.

Heather makes a face half amused, half rueful. "Well. Guess I finally get to meet my little brother."

* * *

_To be continued._


	19. Chapter 19

_**Freefall, **_**Part Nineteen**

Without a waterfall pouring down its throat, the pit that swallows the sea is a world of mud.

Thin clouds of sea-spray still drift over its far-above mouth, but the pit has slaked its thirst for now, and the glancing light of morning shimmers through the mist. Rocks smeared with slime, rot-green and battered brown, jut out from the narrowing sides like bones half-buried, forgotten beneath the clutter of changing seasons.

In the shadow of one such stone, keeping low to the dark-smeared ledge sweeping out beneath it, two dragons stare up at the sky.

They have dreamed of that sky always, since they fled into caves beneath the sea, chasing the _flip _of a moon-white tail and the lure of _maybe_ and _more_, lands not yet seen, and dragons not yet greeted. The dragon-pair have seen wondrous things there. Others Like Them, and stones that glow with their own light, and mushrooms that grow where dragons put them to be eaten. A world without hunters, but without the sun. They feel so clearly the feather-thin weight of the thoughts of their flock now – but the sight of the clear blue arch of the sky steals their breath and leaves them sighing.

Just _there_, their world! The caves are beautiful, but could never be home. The boundless world is only a leap and a rush and a doubled cry of _here-I-am!_ away, with nothing to hold them back or tell them they might not go wherever they want to, however they please –

Nothing, save the sounds of chattering dragons at their tail, wild with delight and the glee of hatchlings going somewhere they were forbidden to go. Those dragons look to them now, hoping for the _more _their world has denied them, and Hiccup and Toothless know each by the secret taste of their souls.

Nothing, save the blot on the sky, as small and sharp and deadly as the point of a blade.

Crouched by Toothless' side, their shoulders pressed together, Hiccup tracks it as it wobbles through the air, snarling _bitterness _and _revulsion_. That it is a made thing, a human thing, he sees clearly. He has investigated many such things with wary taps and his own sharp-claw knife, ready always to leap away before they can spring and bite. Made things do not look like grown things, no matter how hard they try – the sharp, hard lines of them are always there.

And it is all hard lines, this made thing. It looks like two branches crossed over each other, like something scratched into wet sand with an angry claw, with a knot at the place where they join. It bristles with spikes and sharp edges, glinting with the threat of metal. It is a thing that should not fly.

It does not ride with the wind; the currents that swirl through the pit swipe their claws at it, buffeting it heavily, and Hiccup has little love for stones that fly. The thing has no wings spread to embrace the sky, it has no _right _to be up there – and yet it is.

He looks closer, as the dragons hovering above it waver and flutter. No – it does have wings, but they are stolen. _Offended, _Hiccup growls, bristling defensively. The reddish-dark dragons, who crouch to a human Alpha, are bound to it by strong chains that glitter in the morning sun.

And _that _is a wrongness, the little dragon hisses, feeling Toothless bare his fangs and set his shoulders _mine-ours!_ beside him.

Neither Hiccup nor Toothless doubt who intrudes upon their sky, running in their tracks relentlessly, slavering _hunger _and howling at the emptiness in his belly. The Starving Man commands heavy-shouldered, sharp-tusked enemy-cousins. He traps and threatens those Like Them, and surely many others, to hunt so cleverly and so well. He hungers for their deaths and then hungers more. Even their fastest flying and best hiding has not shaken him, and that is reason enough for the dragon-pair to stand and fight.

But the _hatred _they snarl up at the Starving Man and his flying thing comes from a place even deeper than their lifelong war against those who harm their kin.

There is another Alpha in their sky, a rival in their territory, and that cannot be borne.

Before, the Starving Man was a danger to be fled. Everything they knew howls that a hunter so close to a nest, their nest now, must not be. He is doing something very strange, and the wavering path of his flight says that he is not yet sure of his footing to leap from, but the dragon-pair find no comfort in that. They watch _suspicion _from the shadows, too far below to be seen among the stones.

Now, he is also a rival to be defeated, driven away and humiliated, so that he cannot take what is _theirs_.

The Starving Man has not sunk his teeth into their flanks, but he pants close behind.

Well, so they shall have to fly faster then, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ know, whispering to each other in snarls and glares and shuddering, furious, chirping cries. The pit is far too wide for their voices to echo, and the Starving Man too high above to hear, but they murmur to each other as if their enemy walked very close, listening for the crunch of dying leaves beneath an unwary pawstep or a startled warning cry.

_Them?_ Toothless asks, _uncertainty_, glancing back down the line of his spine; his tail is wrapped around his Hiccup-self beside him, tail-fins spread as wide and protective as they will go. _They-there they want want yes out want look sun sun good sun up up up eager want they yes us yes say-so certain-sure!_

Not all of the dragons of the underground flock followed them to find the sun, nor would _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ ask them to. There are hatchlings to care for and mushrooms to grow and dark crevasses to hide in, for those fearful of the strange dreamed-of sunlight. There are familiar nests shaped just right for bodies to sleep in, and familiar stones to tread, and flock-mates to play the games of always-before with. There are mates to chase and be chased by, and glowing points in the vault of stone to watch as they flare and fade. There are wisps to purr to as they flutter through the caves in a dizzying swarm.

For many of the hidden dragons, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _have sensed, it is enough to know that _out _exists. It is interesting, but not something that must be run to and chased down and pounced upon.

For some, it is enough to know that a flock-mate who vanished long ago, forgotten by most but still mourned for by one or two, might not have been lost in the darkest deeps to die alone. Perhaps that one – and Toothless had remembered a restless fire-skin cousin he had never seen before, and Hiccup the echo of her glowing golden scales like a dream – had found her way _out_. Perhaps she had loved the sky too much to return to the stone.

For some, it is a fearful thing. To them, the open expanse of the sky is an _emptiness _as frightening as the lightless depths that could have swallowed golden Fearless. One such void lies between the colorful, glowing caverns and the crystal-laced chamber just beyond the waterfall, and it has turned all but the most reckless of young dragons aside.

But for some, _out _is a promise of a very grand adventure, and Hiccup and Toothless have promised to lead them to this new place _out. _Must _fear _be their first taste of the world beneath the sky?

Their enemy, their rival, hovers in their way. The Starving Man stalks them like a fox after hares, lying patiently upwind from a burrow and waiting for its prey to return.

And Hiccup whines _worry_, scratching his claws against the stone _uneasy _as he watches the flying thing sink and rise again. A memory runs a cold tongue across his belly, fangs only a breath of _betrayal_ away. It stinks like a whale washed ashore. Something that had been strange and wonderful and almost right, that sang as if trying to speak in dragons' sounds, turned fetid and ruined.

_Reassurance_, Toothless noses at him, a warm _whuff_ of familiar scent across his face and fur. _No no Hiccup-beloved no fine-maybe that-there important-now yes certain-sure danger! us we fight yes you want? brave us love-you good sure fierce!_

Toothless offers _fire_, a flash of purple-white flames hidden within his jaws; he offers _fangs _snapped out and snarling. He offers _fight _with hindlegs braced to spring and shoulders lowered _pounce_.

Hiccup considers, eyes fixed on the flying thing even as his thoughts leap and scatter, tumbling over themselves as he considers and schemes and plans. He can feel his Toothless-_half _listening to him as if his dragon-self had put his nose into his skull, scenting the wild ideas and barely formed imaginings there.

He remembers a dream that was real, and broad wings spread out from his own shoulders, and the exhilaration of true flight, free and powerful and right in the open sky. The lingering hurts of their challenge have fled before a long sleep and water enough to swim in, Toothless' _love _wrapped around him like Hiccup could crawl into his heart and curl up there, and the fresh cool air of their living, sunlight world. But the certainty of that truth remains: he was meant to fly.

He senses the curiosity and the eagerness of dragons Like Them who are Theirs now, and dragons like their cousins who are Theirs as well. They have flown confined all their lives, but they have _flown. _Agile and precise and delicate, and quick: they too were meant to fly.

He sees a thing that was _never_ meant to.

The little dragon smiles with an expression that is his and only his, a dragon's smirk on a human face, playful and clever and reckless.

_Trick_, he chirps, glancing up _mischief_ at Toothless, who laughs down at him.

And he closes his eyes beneath the last of the falling sea-spray, as their enemy hovers between their flock and their freedom, and spins them both a dream.

_This –_

* * *

_Danger! _Toothless announces, stalking back down through the narrow shaft of sunlight that warms the stone, his head raised high, his eyes hard with fearless _determination_. The broad cave, grey with threads of reddish umber washed across its stones, is filled with stone teeth all joined together, turning the cavern to a forest grown tall enough to touch its sky.

But unlike when they came this way before, when Shiver searched for the scents of her flock-mates searching for her and found that they had not even looked, the cave is also filled with dragons.

They are dragons Like Them and dragons long-limbed and spindly. Their faces bristle with fangs, or have muzzles narrow and sleek. They have golden eyes and blue and green and washed-pale red. They explore on two legs and on many. They call to each other in shrill voices and in rumbles. Their markings glow with their heart-fires, or they have no markings at all. They are a flock as different and varied as that of the nest where Hiccup and Toothless grew up together, but all of them share one thing.

_Hope _shines from all their eyes, longing to chase the dream their Alphas brought them until it can be caught. All these dragons want to see the sun, to fly beneath the open sky, to find new places without stone defining the limits of their world. Their faith in the black dragon and his dragon-feral has brought them here to the threshold between buried world and bright one.

_You here you brave yes certain-sure __**good**__,_ Toothless sends to those who believe, _**reassurance**_, but he bares his fangs _caution_, too.

On his shoulders, their flying-with binding them together ready to fly, Hiccup turns his eyes up to where the Starving Man hovers, pretending at flight well enough to maybe even come _here _someday, where a hunter should never, ever go. _Threat-there!_ Hiccup whistles, _incredulous_, _offended_. _Must-not!_

Once again, they tell a story. They remind their flock that the outside world has dangers greater than a rockfall or a nest-mate with a bitten tail. But those dangers, they promise, can be fought – _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _have defied them always.

Toothless spreads his wings out, turning in the sunbeam to show the scars he survived.

_Us we go yes hurry-hurry up up up go we fly!_ Hiccup challenges them.

The Starving Man hungers to chase them, they say, and so they will give him a chase.

_You want, _Toothless asks them all, _you come?_

Many of the flock are Like Them, some with traces of black dusting their white scales but more as pale white as snow beneath the moon. Colors ripple across their scales, wavering burgundy _fearful _and flicker-faint green like a broken mushroom, _hesitant._ Sparking red signals _alarm_ as they stare past the dragon-pair, their Alphas, and doubt. Their caves whisper to them _safety_, _familiarity_. They have never known another world.

In all the tiny signals of dragons flying as a flock, where they must know each other's movements on instinct so they do not strike each other, the mob of dragons hesitates. Do they dare, after all? _Can_ they?

The moment's breathless silence is broken by a familiar voice, jagged with deep-carved scars but defiant.

_Me!_

All the startled eyes turn back over shoulders, peering around _surprise _to see the dragon who has spoken out, except for Hiccup and Toothless, who do not move at all.

They have been aware of her, of course; they know her shape and her steps among all others Like Them. When the flock of the hidden caves came to them when they were new again, pushing each other aside to howl _amazement _and _wonder _over the Alphas who stepped forward to lead at last, she did not come. But she was there, in the places Toothless did not look for but could not help but see.

She was there, sitting silently with her head low, when he and Hiccup woke from their deep, exhausted sleep. Not close enough to speak to, but where she could see them, though she did not seem to look.

She was there, waiting on the furthest ledge beneath the cave-mouth, when Toothless had flown to the way _out_ with Hiccup on his shoulders purring _triumph _to not be turned away.

She was there, trailing along behind them, when the venturing flock crowded around _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _and roared _delight _when they whistled _c'mon!_

She has not looked at them. She has not spoken to them, as if she was nothing but the reflection that skips along still water as they glide above. She has made herself No One, and Toothless has not wanted to think of her. Her shadow and her scent – itself and harmless again – are an open wound that he has not dared to touch.

Until now.

_Me!_ Shiver declares again, insistent. She does not need to push through the gathered flock – they part before her, blowing _disbelief_ and recoiling _surprise_. Incredulous colors spiral and splash over dragon scales as the little white dragon lifts her head defiantly. Her ear-flaps flick down against spiteful hisses that snap at her tail, though no one steps forward to challenge. She hears them – _tension _flicks across her side at every grumble – but she walks on.

_Regret _howls from her as she meets Hiccup's eyes, then Toothless'. Only for a blink, and then she lowers her sky-blue eyes again, crouching _Alpha _before them with _remorse _in every line and breath of her body. _Sorry,_ she says, her signals very small. _Sorry._

As frozen as an iceberg, they do not reply.

Hearing rejection in their silence, as if she were No One once more, she shudders. Hiccup hears her swallow down a whimper, barely louder than a soundless wisp.

Under the eyes of her flock-mates who have thought only the worst of her and the doubled gaze of the Alpha she brought here and tried to control, Shiver refuses to show the hurt and the despair rending her in two. To them, she shows only _pride. _Only the breath-thin bond between her soul and her Alphas betrays the weight forcing her skull down to the stone – _shame_.

But she raises her head, though she must work to do it. With her scales blank white, she stands as tall as she can – all white dragons Like Them are smaller than Toothless, but Shiver is small even among them – and crosses the few paces to stand at Toothless' side, in the single sunbeam.

Shiver sets her shoulders _resolute_ and stares out at her flock-mates _challenge_. _She _will fly, her body says and her eyes glare, snapping out her fangs and mantling her wings.

She who is smallest and least of all of them, but who has flown under the sky before – _she _will fly against the danger keeping them from _out_.

In her silence, in her smallness, in her heartbreak, in the golden light of morning sunlight along her sides, Shiver dares the flock to do better.

* * *

Toothless folds his wings tight to his shoulders, anticipation and eagerness coiling through him, and Hiccup crouches low, their flying-with secure around them both. He waits and waits and waits, his pulse thrumming like Hiccup's paws tapping against his sides, as his body howls to fly…

And in an instant, he _leaps_, shooting into the air faster than falling, with the sudden sharp _snap! _that even very long necks must fold back on themselves to follow.

The stone walls of the pit streak past disregarded, there and gone and meaningless. There is nothing to the world but the open blue eye of the sky above, the intruder hovering in it a fleck of dust to be blinked away, and the absolute rightness of spreading his wings wide. His first powerful downbeat hurls them higher, higher, _higher –!_ The launch burns through his chest like blasting-fire, and Toothless rejoices in it with savage delight.

At last, they are out of the pit and out of the dark, into the sun, into battle, into flight!

The open air screams _welcome_, and Toothless roars back _**challenge**_, Hiccup's crow of _**defiance**_ twining among his cry. The world blurs around them as they scream up into the belly of the hunter's craft as if they mean to tear it open from beneath, and Toothless fixes on it like prey, fangs ready to strike. He does not need to read the wind and twitch his tail to guide him true, nor does his beloved's weight on his shoulders knock him askew; only Hiccup's absence would do that.

Up and up and up, their hearts racing faster than their wings, and with perfect confidence, Toothless aims for a mark he cannot miss.

The branches of the flying thing are turning, wavering in the aggressive, unpredictable winds of the pit, but Toothless shoots through the clear air between two of them without even scraping his wings against the metal.

Only a glimpse of the hunter, as they snap through, but Toothless can feel Hiccup yowling mockery, _laughter_ clear and true at the shock on their enemy's face, eyes wide with disbelief, and his ungainly stumble like a drowning spider as he knocks over a metal holding-thing, breathing smoke. A screech of pain and surprise follows them as the dragon-pair dart between the enemy-cousins bound to their lifting, jeering _too-slow look us here us fly bold here-I-am certain-sure daring fearless you slow slow!_

Toothless swerves into the sky in a long curve that breaks like a spine, jolting up and away before the closest lifting dragon can turn her eyes to him. He slaps his tail across her muzzle, snapping it away before she can bite or flame or dart her tail-spike into his chest, and whistles insults. _Here I here you look you want? Yawn slow bored-now I go!_

Beneath them, the Starving Man screams and snarls, and Toothless feels Hiccup lean over his side to watch as the rival Alpha scrambles to react – too late, too slow! The smallest nudge against his ribs sends Toothless spiraling aside, vanishing behind the wallowing bulk of another roaring enemy-dragon as that one tries to turn to see – but black dragon and dragon-feral are gone _again_. Toothless folds his wings and drops like icefall, pouncing upon another wind that carries him aside.

The flying thing sways wildly as the hunting-lifting dragons lunge and snap and turn, chasing prey that will not be hunted, that does not fear them but that will not stay to fight. Chains rattle and grind against the metal of the flying thing, and one branch of it dips suddenly as the dragon carrying it tries to match Toothless' plunge.

Falling in the absolute confidence that they _know_ how to fall, Toothless feels Hiccup leave his shoulders and land again as the black dragon rolls, wings flickering in and out as he climbs into the sky anew. Over the edge of the pit, the ocean flashes brightly, but no brighter than his own flames, and if the glare of it blinds him for a moment, Hiccup will be his eyes.

_Up!_ Hiccup signals, tugging back on their flying-with, _now!_ and Toothless surges upwards, almost flipping over his own spine-fins. The counterbalance of it throws him all the way over, and around again, and into a spinning, ascending spiral, all in an eyeblink, and they snap out of the difficult, dizzying maneuver with the ease they worked for.

A blast of thick fire scorches beneath the claws held tight to his chest, heat shimmering against black scales, and Toothless turns his wings into it, letting his enemies' fires bear him aloft. If the blaze dies against sheer and muddied rock walls, far behind him, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do not see. Their focus is on the dragons jostling to come after them, hunters like their master, and the Starving Man clinging to the metal of the shuddering, tilting flying thing.

He no longer shouts, and Toothless feels Hiccup's _fury _like a fire in his skull, burning fierce and dark. The black dragon brings them about for another strike, eying his enemy for weaknesses.

A single perfect blast of fire, and the Starving Man burns, but he is cunning, this hunter. The dragons who crouch to him defend him. There are cords like a flying-with stretched across the metal of his flying thing, a chain like those that bind his hunters stretching between his back and the cage at its heart. They remember Shiver's memories of blazing at him, and seeing her flames die against the scale-black leather he wears.

They do not fly to kill him, but they will knock their enemy from the sky, if they can.

Springing into the void, streaking through a drift of sea-spray mist to emerge with their scales glistening bright and wet, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _soar high over the Starving Man's head, taunting his dragons. Their doubled voice sings _c'mon dare-you here me look-at-me up up up here waaaaaaiting yes yes laughter not-afraid you come-catch-me!_ Hiccup's piercing screeches play beneath the feet of Toothless' deeper roars, the two halves of them thinking and speaking and acting as a single perfect whole.

_Exhilaration _burns hotter than the sun, and laughter snaps between them even as hunting-lifting dragons snap out crablike claws, grasping too slow for the dragon-pair flying once more without limit or bound. A wild rush of _joy _sweeps them both up in the cascade of it, churning like a river set free from ice by the spring.

Veering up into the sky and away, screaming the triumph of _out!,_ Hiccup and Toothless soar free and defiant, daring their foes to come and get them.

And they follow, the bound dragons!

Roaring _hunt _and _hunger_ and their own _triumph _thwarted, snarling _frustration_, glaring _rage _at the impudence pouring over them from above, one pair and then the other surge into the air, lumbering out of the pit. The muted reds and scarred blacks of their scales flash to match their fires. Their tails lash eagerly and snap up to tremble in tight arches over their spines. Narrowed eyes squint into the light, fixed on the black dragons they have chased so far, and their noses flare with the eagerness of hunters who have caught a scent.

But they cannot escape their bonds. Beneath them, the flying thing sways wildly, a branch in a sudden windstorm, waving _look look look _amidst the pitiless gale.

It _is_ a cage in the middle, and there the Starving Man has set himself, kicking aside something that spills ashes. Still burning, they fall into the pit, their calling scent quickly drowned beneath the dark depths far below. A tendril of it drifts up to the dragon-pair, and Toothless blows it away with a dismissive _snort_, wise to it always now.

Never again will he be led blindly by a scent; when he follows his nose, he will do it with all his eyes open.

If the Starving Man wants them, he will have to come to them – and he is trying! Their enemy screams at his dragons, and they haul his flying cage upwards, over the edge of the pit, up into the open air.

Toothless signals _up!_ with the barest twitch of his body, and Hiccup sets his heels against his dragon-self's ribs as Toothless backwings, leaping into another wind that pushes them higher. The sea spreads out all around them, waves rippling across the blue-green shallows and away into the deeper blues. There, the _horizon! _It is waiting for them still.

_There _is what they promised, and the wild pair draw their enemy after them to clear the way.

Another screamed command, and still the lifting dragons follow, closing in. These hunters have their scent.

_Look-there!_ Hiccup cries, _alert _and _alarm_.

Toothless glances flicker-fast away from the dragons to the hunter braced in his cage, shifting with the windblown, dragon-hauled flight so that the bright-sharp point of the arrow aimed straight at them does not even waver a bit.

Across the space between them, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ see the twisted, hungry grimace, the bitter, cruel triumph carving its claws through the man's long face. The wind holds its breath, the hunting dragons beat their wings as one and leave an empty space, and the unsteady swing of the flying cage finds a balance.

Just for an instant, but enough.

The Starving Man grabs the stick to send the bowstring snapping, the arrow flying, and –

_You!_ another voice screams, shrilling _rage! _as piercing as fangs.

A flickering drift of sea-mist brightens, sharpens – and all at once, becomes a furious, vengeful white dragon, her face contorted in _hatred_ for the hunter who hurt her, who shot her from the sky just so.

She has run, and she has hurt, and she has run, and she has been so _afraid_! Above the home she raced to return to, with nothing left to lose, Shiver rises to fight.

_No!_ Shiver shrieks, fire blazing from her throat, sunlight burning across her wings that ripple purple-white and sun-gold to match, shedding the blending blue of the open sky. Her own true white is a defiant blaze across her flanks and belly, all the way out to the sharp-cut tips of her tail.

_Fight fierce brave out yes fly me HATE-YOU! NO NO NO NO NO!_

Unseen by hunters, her scent disguised beneath Toothless', she bowed her head beneath her Alphas' chirruped command of _wait-to-pounce_ – but no more. Now she dives at the Starving Man like lightning, tearing bright and glorious across the sky. She grants no more than an instant's warning for the hunter who jerks away with a strangled yelp that might be _fear_, throwing his forelegs over his head as he crumples down into himself, hiding from her wrath.

Out of position, the lifting hunters lurch, startled by the little dragon appearing from nowhere, right under their wings. Shiver's claws strike the cage with a reverberating _clang_, and the hunter hiding within it is thrown backward, his shoulder striking the bow.

The arrow spirals away aimlessly, tumbling end over end into the pit.

Toothless watches it fall, but only in a glance. He has Shiver to watch, as she clings to the bars of the cage and screams _hatred_ at the man cowering inside, slashing out at her with a small blade; he has two of the hunting-lifters to watch as they scramble to get at him and his Hiccup-self, pushing each other aside and even hauling back on their chains to throw their flock-mates out of kilter. Flames lick out at him, and Toothless dodges them with ease.

He has the other two hunters to watch as they dive for Shiver, dropping half of the flying thing until it tilts over sideways. Things clatter against the bars and crash through, falling and lost forever in the deeper dark. Shiver rides it down with ease, gripping the cage as she would a hanging stone-tooth, until she must leap away.

The lost arrow tumbles harmlessly past one ledge among many, and there, Toothless purrs _satisfaction _to see many dragons crowding out of the tunnel, turning their faces to the sky. From above, they are only the barest shreds of green and gold and red and blue and white and purple, spots and splotches and jagged stripes and gentle dapples like the changing surface of the sea, but _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ know them all, can sense their wonder and their delight.

_C'mon!_ Hiccup whistles gleefully, chirruping _exhilaration _for the sky far above and the sea to race over. Toothless does not have to look back over his shoulder to see his partner-self turn to mark Shiver as she dodges a branch of the flying thing, spinning wildly one way, then another, as its lifters rebalance it. Their Alpha's screeches are a thorn that begs to be chewed from their paw.

Hiccup murmurs _concern_, tapping his claws _impatience_, and then, as one of the hunter dragons, stung by her Alpha's screams, whips her tail around to strike –

_Hey!_ another voice yells a challenge, and Rivulet fades into view.

Her eyes are wild with wonder, her scales flashing with all the colors of her home-nest as if she does not know what she feels. But she darts past the other side of the hunting she-dragon, screaming _fear _and _excitement _running together like water into sand. Close enough for her wingtip to strike the she-dragon's side, she tumbles over her own nose and comes up again hovering, howling _look-at-me!_

Hunting-lifting she-dragon and Shiver and Starving Man and another hunting dragon all turn to look, and Hiccup howls _delight _and _**pride**_, shrieking _laughter_ at the shock in all their signals.

Their enemies had known _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _and Shiver, but not that they were _many!_

_Good good good good good you go go now!_ he cries, and Rivulet scorches away into the sky with only a yelp of _disbelief_ at the wideness of this new world and her own daring.

One of the hunting-lifting dragons lunges at her, roaring _hunger_, and Rivulet races faster, wailing _fear_, crying _help!_ But before he can pounce, her pursuer sees Shiver as well, and his wings stumble. He blinks and shakes his head _confusion_, backwinging, and the flying cage he and his flock-mates bear jolts abruptly, throwing the Starving Man against the bars.

_Here-I-am! _another one Like Them shrieks from beside Hiccup and Toothless, bright blue sky twisting into the laughing blue eyes of Jump Slide. She nudges her nose at Hiccup _reassurance_, as if he were still the little dragon rebuked and cast down upon the shore of their cave lake. The white dragon springs into the air _proud _to follow him and Toothless now into such a _beautiful_, she purrs _appreciation_, sky.

And another – Sleeps Among Wisps, bright purple-white waves like blasting-fire bursting across her scales.

And another – Hider, leaping nearly into the underbelly of the hunting-lifting he who still pursues his mate, scraping his claws along lighter red scales.

And another – Little-One's-Mother's-Mate, racing for the Alphas who loved his blank-white hatchling, who hoped for _more _for her as he had.

And another – Caught An Octopus, sharp fans of amazed color coruscating above his dark grey paws.

And another –

And another –

And more still –

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_' flock of those Like Them appear from the sky all around them, screeching their Alphas' challenge, racing fastest of all to draw their enemies away from their flock-mates still venturing out of the hidden passage below. They swarm all over like wisps, glowing not with their own fires, but with the light of the sun, flaring the colors of their hidden nest.

Hunting-lifting dragons snap frantically at the air, trying to charge every way at once. As fast as they can be, they are no match for quick-darting dragons who vanish with the agility of lifetimes flying through caverns' confines, and who vanish for real, fading into the sky and reappearing somewhere else. The scents of white dragons flood the sky, tangled up together as a flock should be, hiding each dragon's scent beneath another's.

Beneath them all, the flying cage shakes and tumbles, and the hunter caught within it is thrown against the bars, saved only by his cords like a flying-with. His shouts are buried beneath the yowls of the flock, and black dragon and dragon-feral, Alphas both, roar with them.

_Can't-catch-me!_ Hiccup and Toothless scream again, soaring past a hunting-lifting dragon as she pulls her bound flock-mates behind her, charging for Jump Slide. Toothless flips his tail into her face, not quite close enough to bite – a pain that never happened is a dream still remembered – and sets his side to the pull of the world, following a path he knows.

They know where they are. They know where everywhere they have ever been is, too. And they know where this Starving Man must go.

With the pit at their tail as the rest of their venturing flock escapes unnoticed and free, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ reach out to their racers in a breath and a thought.

_**Follow – fly!**_

And the racers who offered their wings for this chase take off across the open sky and the endless sea, a falling star's bright white tail behind the black dragons leading the way.

Hunters howl in their wake, deaf to the commands of the Starving Man as he screams orders and tries to find his feet within his cage. The hunting-lifting dragons have the only command they wish to follow – they remember only the hunt, and they surge to the pursuit.

But _nothing _in the air can outfly _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, and those Like Them are quick, wild with the thrill of an open sky. Screams of _amazement_ whisk through the wind alongside shrieks of _fear _as a hunting-lifting dragon lunges too close to a racer distracted by a new scent, or fire nips at their tail, but the boldest of all the hidden flock do not falter and do not stop.

_Look! _Sleeps Among Wisps screams at the sea rising and falling beneath them, peering under her foreleg and sinking down to look more closely. _That-there what that water yes look many-many-many amazement where that thirsty-me yes there?_

_No!_ The rebuke comes from Shiver, who darts down to herd her upwards before Sleeps Among Wisps can crash into the waves with her jaw wide.

_Not-to-eat_, Shiver warns, spitting _disgust_, panting _thirst_. _C'mon there look careful-there!_ With her flock-mate following, the little white dragon scrambles up into the air, waving her wings to catch the eye of a hunting-lifting dragon, fixed too closely on Caught An Octopus. _Danger!_

Caught An Octopus veers aside, rolling over his nose and darting another way entirely. Hiccup, crouched low to Toothless' shoulders, glances back at the sharp-angled cage bouncing and spinning in their wakes, purring _spite _and _satisfaction _at the outraged screams coming from it. _So-there!_ Hiccup squawks; Toothless does not need to see his smirk to feel it.

That bright bond hums between them still, something they can _almost _see when they look just right.

They have always been closely tuned to each other. They learned through a lifetime together to read each other's thoughts from a single blink, the slightest gesture, the faintest dip of head or eyes, the infinitely deep harmonies and counterpoints and contradictions of speech like song. Toothless can tell what Hiccup is thinking from the smallest twitch of his beloved-one's paws across his scales just as Hiccup can sense which way Toothless will move from the pull of muscles in a tail far behind him.

The deep blue of the ocean streaks past beneath them; once more they set their tail to an enemy and fly without diversion or hesitation, tracing out a new course to a place they know.

To fly together as Alphas is to fly as the single self they have always known they are, _knowing_ without hesitation. When Toothless turns to catch the wind, hunting for the scent that calls to Lonely Maybe even as Shiver swings wide and chases her back into the flock, no sooner does he breathe it in than Hiccup knows _seal nest._ When Hiccup turns to watch the Starving Man, caught in his own cage, Toothless throws his will behind Hiccup's warning of _**Scatter!**_ the instant his other half sees sunlight glittering from the sharp tip of a smaller biting arrow.

The shot misses, biting only sea quickly left far behind.

_Must-not,_ Hiccup snaps, claws scratching harmlessly across black scales _irritation. Bad that danger-there bad bad bad those-there enough no-more!_ They have soared high, wings outspread into a playful wind that tries to shake them from its back; already Slinky and Hider have been thrown from it, and the two dragons tumble lower laughing, calling out dares to Splashdown and These Colors.

Below them, hunting-lifting dragons thunder in pursuit, charging madly after the lighter, faster, smaller dragons wild with their first taste of true sky and the guarding presence of their Alphas who fly _beside _them, even into danger.

It is strange a bit for _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ to be Alphas in truth –

_No,_ Hiccup nudges at him, _teasing _in the rebuke but a whimper of _courage _there too.

It is strange a _lot_, then. They led their flock-mates from a crowded home to make new nests, but always knew that they would return to crouch willing _submission_. They have always bowed _Majesty _to their king, a towering presence as powerful as winter and tides, big enough to smash down mountains and fill the sky. They are only _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ who wander and tell stories and fall into trouble and make mischief when none finds them! They are small enough to be picked up entire; Cloudjumper can swat them tumbling! _They _cast no shadow so broad as the king of ice.

_Here-though,_ Hiccup sighs, lowering his head to Toothless' skull where no one can see. _Us we do yes fight!_

They are the Alphas this flock has for the foe they face, and so they will have to be enough.

And Alphas protect their own.

Rivulet cries out _distress _when she sees Toothless luff his wings and turn into the wind, circling as if to chase his tail. _No no no you go yes us-together go you say!_ she protests, as the dragon-pair veer from their course to dive into the faces of their pursuers. _Fear _splashes dark rainbows across her scales, but she tilts her wings as if ready to turn and fight beside them.

_Go go __**go**__!_ Hiccup whistles, waving her away. The rest of the racing flock is already hesitating, seeing their leaders turn back. Who will they follow?

A piercing screech answers them: _C'mon!_

Whistling _follow_, Shiver darts to the fore, yowling for her flock-mates to fly, to fly _faster_, danger races behind them! They _must_, she insists, _determination _flashing across her scales, ear-flaps flicked down and eyes narrowed into the wind she knows how to fly in, better than any of them except Hiccup and Toothless themselves.

Shiver races onward, streaking above the sparkling waves, and the flock finds themselves in her wake. She does not give them time to argue; she sets her shoulders and shoves _confidence _into every rapid beat of her wings. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _can feel her resolve, like a tongue licking a painful wound clean, knowing the scar will remain.

Hiccup and Toothless plunge through the swarm of racing white dragons like a school of fish flickering away, dropping steeply enough that Toothless' claws hiss over the very tips of the waves. The lumbering stampede of hunting-lifting dragons and spinning metal cage tears past over their heads, and Hiccup pushes them sideways, dodging a wild-shot arrow that misses them entirely. All the momentum of _down_ flows easily over Toothless' wings into _up_, a sharp ascent that rakes the wind's claws across their scales, only the tight-woven straps of their flying-with keeping Hiccup on Toothless' shoulders.

The Starving Man howls for their deaths, snarling _hatred _without joy. This is _their _fight now, not a trap he set beneath enclosing trees!

Watching him warily through the bars of the cage he has put himself into, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _soar closer, baiting the hunter to shoot at them again. They understand arrows; arrows are not like pine needles. Hiccup can sit beneath a pine tree and pull its needles free all day, and have only sticky paws for his effort: still there will be more.

Arrows run out. A bow without arrows cannot bite. And _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _can dodge _fast._

_Dare-you!_ Hiccup shrieks, jeering. _You yes that us here you want? here-we-are! Us brave here look get-you!_ and Toothless jolts closer in an aborted pounce before veering away, still close enough to lure.

If the hunting-lifting dragons notice them, they will have to race ahead again – this Starving Man must go where the dragon-pair are taking him. But for a few wingbeats, they can glide close enough to see the pure _rage _burning in the hunter's eyes, turning his fishbelly-sallow face bloody red. A fresh burn, splashed over an older one, tracks along the back of his bare forepaw. The man's mouth, too wide in his long face, no longer smiles with teeth to bite and devour; now his teeth are bared to rip. Rapid, ever-changing winds splash his white fur everywhere, but he has no forepaws free to brush it away. They are fixed around the bow, with one foreleg twined around the cage bars. His hindpaws are braced against other bars as if he fears to fall, as well he may.

Black dragon and dragon-feral grin at him with spiteful glee and the satisfaction of a trick working very well.

Angry enough to burst, the Starving Man fixes his eyes on the dragon-pair and screams outrage.

Amidst the tangled sounds, he screams a name.

_Toothless!_

The dragon-pair can dodge arrows, but the _wrongness _of that sound sinks into them like a shard of ice.

_No!_ Toothless roars back to him, _refusal_ – those sounds are not his to speak!

Because how can he know those sounds? He commanded Toothless _down_ by name, in the forest where he held Shiver trapped. He knew. He _knew._

It is rare for Hiccup to speak to humans, rarer still for him to give away the sounds that mean _us._ The only _pfikingr_ who should know those sounds are _pfikingr _who – until now – Hiccup and Toothless had believed to be their friends.

And that is a problem much heavier than the Starving Man's shadow at the threshold to the hidden caves, one that cannot be chased away with a blast of fire and slashing claws. Have the _pfikingr_ of _Buh-rrrrrrKK_ turned against them, to tell their secrets to an enemy? Has _Uh strrrrTT _tired of her brave-hearted Flies in Storms, sending her friend away or worse? Has she betrayed the promise of safety she offered, and the peace between _pfikingr_ and dragon there? Could the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK, _who truly _was _their mother's mate once, have given the scent of their mother's children to a predator?

They do not want to believe it, but if a half-buried shape signals _trap_, it does not matter how pleasant that clearing has been to play in before. The hint of danger is all that matters.

What has happened, that this _hunter _– even _pfikingr_ must know what he is – has been given half of their name?

No – he has both halves! Another scream from the bouncing cage is clearly _Hiccup_, garbled as humans speak. Toothless pins his ear-flaps back, trying not to hear it, shuddering. _You hush!_ the black dragon roars.

Every time their enemy speaks their names is a betrayal, reaching into their secrets and their safeties. Has he stolen those sounds? Or were they given to him? Hiccup cannot understand, but he does not like it.

If the Island of Dragons and Strange _Pfikingr _is no longer safe for dragons, they must know, and this is the puzzle they bring the Starving Man to solve for them.

_Uh strrrrTT_ talks like a hatchling, saying far more than she can see. When they drop this hunter before her like a half-eaten fish, one that was _whole_ when they looked away, she will answer to them whether she means to or not.

Shrieking _rage hate fury no no stop down no bad you bad hate want-to-hurt I you kill you-both angry angry! _and spitting their stolen names like poison, the Starving Man hurls only sounds at them, hoarding his arrows. Within his cage, he guards his bow and the glint of a blade against his belly; Toothless cannot burn it without striking him as well, however much he wishes to.

Above, Hiccup spots one of the hunting-lifting dragons glancing away from the fleeing swarm of white dragons, their bodies flashing many colors in the sunlight as they learn about rivers in the air and the scents of distant lands. Before she can slow and turn to the attack, Hiccup yips _C'mon up up up we go yes fast there excitement chase go go go we catch – _and he adds the tremble of amazement and confusion for _Shiver._

_Fine-then!_ Toothless snorts at the fuming hunter, and darts away. He is not _too _surprised when one of those arrows chases him, but Hiccup throws his weight _that-way!_ over his shoulder and Toothless ducks easily beneath the wasted shot.

They leave the Starving Man behind in his dragged-along cage gladly, slipping beneath the relentless wings of the hunting-lifting dragons in a flicker and a blink, letting their enemies' shadows slide from their shoulders. When they plunge back into the swarm of their flock-mates, it feels like coming home.

All around them, white dragons laugh _disbelief _and _amazement _and race each other as much as their hunters, screeching joyously at the truly open sky. Splashdown bounces up and down through the air like a wave herself, tossing glances up at the sun gazing down on them all and blinking its rebuke from her eyes. Shiver shoulder-checks These Colors aside before a hunter-dragon can catch him when he slows, urging him _go!_ Jabber-Jabber and Fetch Fish fly together in spurts and glides, chasing each other and crashing into winds that knock them from their flight. Fetch Fish claws at the thermal welling up under his belly, throwing him into the sky, and his friend shrieks _laughter _up at him as he wallows.

_Here!_ Hiccup cries to them, staying low to Toothless' shoulders as his dragon-self spreads his wings over a wind that flies with them. _You come you here look-look-look follow here good flying attention-here!_

They are faster than many winds that play in the sky, and they cannot rest their wings upon it for long, but Hiccup knows that flying far cannot be done all at once. It must be practiced, must be earned. Shiver grew tired, staggering with knots in her chest and her wings, as they flew back to the caves. They fly with the rush of pursuit and the excitement of a new world to see, but these dragons will tire, too.

But for now, the cries that fill the sky are bright with _joy_, wild with _wonder_, shrill with _defiance _for the hunters – fiercer than even the largest of their flock-mates – chasing behind them. The eyes of the hunting-lifting dragons are narrowed small but burning _need_, to have their prey always so close. Not a word from their Alpha can shake them now, and their wings beat like thunder.

The flock burns over the sea like a fireblast, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ cry seamless _exhilaration _among the wings of those Like Them.

On the outskirts of the flock, Hiccup sees Shiver flying wide, whistling _look-there _shaded with _no-threat_ and _glee_, only an instant before a flock of _yawk_ing seagulls explodes all around them. Whether white dragons or seagulls screech louder, or which flock is more surprised, none of them can say. The remnants of the birds try to dive beneath the hunting-lifting dragons and meet the wildly bouncing metal cage, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ can sense Shiver's smug _pride_ as she pulls ahead of them all, crunching ostentatiously on a seagull she snapped from the chaos.

_Eat?_ the Little-One's-Mother's-Mate whines curiously, _want want yes good?_

Hiccup glances over his shoulder as Toothless forges on, dividing their attention as easily as a two-heads cousin. Seeing one of the hunting-lifting dragons draw in a deep breath, he cries out a warning of _danger. Fire!_

Almost instantly, every white dragon in the flock ripples blue, fading into the sky like they were never there, as if the dragon-pair flew once again alone. They know they do not. But their enemy cannot sense their flock-mates, glowing in their thoughts like so many stars, as they can. Her fire lashes out blindly, and misses all.

Oh, the world has never been so _beautiful!_ The sea beneath their wings – and the wings of those Like Them, when they reappear one by one – ripples with ever-changing greens and blues down to black, scattered with the white spray of waves breaking over shallow rocks. The winds washing over them flirt and tempt with the scents of faraway islands, green and growing things, the warm plains of the summer tundra as they bake beneath the long sun, the traces of prey-musk and distant predators. Even the heavy scent of hunting-lifting cousins so close behind them cannot lessen Toothless' delight at the scent of other dragons. He dips his nose into each wind like a picky fisher sorting through his catch, tasting each one, and Hiccup, sunk deep into his awareness, relishes the richness of each new-familiar scent-trail.

Each different-shaped cloud that drifts by overhead is greeted with shrieks of disbelief by their racing flock, to whom _all _these things are new. When a low-lying one crosses their path, the dragon-pair cry out _follow_, and dive into it with Shiver close at their tail, riding their wake. For a moment, all are blind, and then they all burst out on the other side dripping with mist, the white dragons squealing like hatchlings – it looked so _there_, and it was not there at all! It was colored like them, like it was for them! Clouds are _magic!_

_Again!_ Jump Slide yowls, glowing blue-gold with pleasure, and Hiccup grins at her, pushing _**gladness **_that she flies beside them into her thoughts.

On Toothless' other side, Shiver breaks away and tumbles backwards, charging back through their flock with fire blazing in her jaws. With a mewl of _concern_, Hiccup turns to follow her, brushing _ready-maybe_ against his dragon-half's shoulder.

He has only a moment to glimpse the dark scratch of an arrow cutting through the sky, and then Shiver's fires turn it to ash midair.

_No no!_ Shiver screams _hatred _at the Starving Man, diving shallowly beneath his dragons' claws and tumbling wide around his cage. She burns another arrow almost before it leaves the bow, and jeers _mockery _at her former captor when he slices at her through the bars with a blade he has tied to the end of a broken-off piece of the flying-thing.

Not all of it is metal, then, the dragon-feral notices, and puts that on a stone to look at in glimpses.

All around them, Hiccup can see their flock-mates glancing back at Shiver as she spins and spirals around the wildly swinging cage, every wingbeat perfect and precise as she dodges flailing blade-strikes. _Amusement _blooms in blue eyes and flickers across white scales, and Sleeps Among Wisps whistles _encouragement_ as they fly, cheering Shiver on.

And they fly, and they fly, and they dance through the air all as one flock, across the endless sea.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ who are two-who-are-one have found more than they could have ever dreamed of, now. They have met others Like Them, and been welcomed; they have met a hatchling Like Them, and they have broken open the biggest trap of _all _for her. They fly quick and clever in the open sky where they belong, chasing the horizon. They can think in each other's thoughts, dream each other's dreams, knowing for certain-sure that they _are _the single self they always knew they were! In flight in the sky, they truly are two-who-are-one.

Only the shadow of betrayal lingers over their wild, euphoric flight.

But in time, as the Starving Man scatters all his arrows into the ocean and screams his voice ragged at hunting-lifting dragons who do not listen when there are little white dragons to lure them on, as Shiver races back to fly beside the dragon-pair, asking nothing of them, the strain of the long flight begins to nibble against their edges.

In the distance, the shadow of a sea stack reaches up against the horizon, and Purrs Like Thunder and Lonely Maybe and These Colors break away. Panting, their wings faltering, they whistle _apologies_ to the flock as they go. They are not as fast as they thought they were, and this world is so much bigger than they imagined!

_**Approval**_, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _send to them, and _**gratitude**_. They have flown far and well, and the world is theirs to explore now. Only a very cruel Alpha would force them to fly further than they wish to; Alphas like _that_, the dragon-pair _fight!_

Before they have gone much further, Fetch Fish turns away as well. He fades from view and slips away beneath the claws of the hunting-lifting dragons, reappearing only as he staggers back towards the sea stack and rest.

But the remainder of the flock flies on, burning high across the ocean towards _Buh-rrrrrrrKK_ and the answers their Alphas must demand, leading an accusation better than any scream.

Once, the ripples of waves ahead of them divide into broad splashes, and the long necks of many steam-spitting dragons rise from the sea.

Their scales all the shades of blue and green, their crops bulging with seawater beneath their jaws, the pod of ocean dragons stares _astonishment_. Their small golden eyes, set far-forward in their powerful heads, go as wide as they can, and the long tendrils scattered around their faces reach upwards _curiosity_.

_Hello!_ Hiccup and Toothless whistle down to them as they scorch by, dipping towards their fascinated gazes and up again. The racers are away and gone before their ocean-flying cousins can do more than stare, but their cries of _laughter _at the Starving Man's gibbers and wails follow them. When the dragon-pair look back, they have vanished beneath the ocean.

Maybe, Hiccup thinks, they will sing of this race in their long songs, and he _ooooOOOOOOooo_s a mimicked ocean-song. Toothless gurgles a chuckle, and _ooooOOOOOOooo_s with him, their flock-mates giggling all around to hear their Alphas making such silly sounds.

Little white dragons cannot fly forever – even _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _cannot yet – and so they take it in turns to draw the hunters' attention, screeching loud and obvious, yowling insults, while others fade sky-blue and soar high in the steady air currents, gliding in imitation of rest.

Hiccup and Toothless never leave the lead, and Shiver keeps pace persistently, still speaking to them not at all.

Her presence does not taint the overwhelming rush of _freedom_ pouring through the dragon-pair, even as they mark every flock-mate racing through the air – they know where each of them is, and who they are, and even a shade of what they feel.

Here, there is no dragon-Alpha, no titan, bearing down upon them. There is no weight of stone over their heads, no cage bars imprisoning them. There is _nothing _here they cannot handle, and they are fully and completely who they are. They are together in the sky with a dragon-flock, _their _flock, all around them, trusting them. They are doing something clever and fast and _right_, and a very good trick as well. They will make this right, and they know they can.

Their world is bright with the true colors and warmth of the summer sun, not the glowing shades of mushrooms and stone, and somewhere very far behind them now, the dragons of the hidden caves have found their promised way _out_.

_Out_ will never be forgotten again.

And the two-who-are-one sing to each other _love-you you mine you me we us always-so together yes love-you joy joy love joy _with every wingbeat, humming _triumph _to the constant gaze of the sun.

* * *

But even the sun cannot fly forever.

The day wears on behind dragons determinedly racing and even more stubbornly chasing. Even the Starving Man has fallen silent, though the force of his hatred is almost another hunter-dragon flying behind them.

As tired as they are, they fly on – there is nowhere else to land, except the place Hiccup and Toothless has promised waits for them if they follow. Adrift in open water, an exhausted dragon can drown.

But Hiccup and Toothless know these skies, and they breathe _**almost!**_ into the thoughts of their flock-mates, urging them just a little further, just a little faster, feeling their swarm of daring racers respond.

And there – there is a shadow on the horizon bigger than any sea stack, more solid than any cloud, and the scent of the wind in the air, tinged with _pfikingr _scents, is familiar.

_C'mon!_ Hiccup cries, and Toothless surges ahead with his partner-self tensed _anxious_ on his shoulders, gathering himself to speak to humans. Hiccup lost all but a few words of human speech long ago, and the little _Uh strrrrTT _has taught him again does not come naturally.

_Encouragement_, Toothless purrs to him, spreading his wings into a glide just for a moment, as if standing protectively above his Hiccup-_beloved_. With a _yip _of amusement, he suggests _me?_

The little dragon chuckles back to him. _You talk them you you?_ and he squawks the seagull noises that human words so often sound like. They can do many things the same, but Toothless can no more utter human sounds than Hiccup can breathe fire. Only together are they a whole.

But the joke does no more than distract from the shock of their first sight of Berk.

Black ships, heavy and brutal and reeking of death, cluster beneath the cliffs of Berk, crouched unmoving among crashing waves not strong enough to push them aside. They are a forest of knotted-together ropes and black cloth, the ground they carry with them a dark-stained mountainside, full of broad ledges and higher perches, scattered about with the dangerous tools of a power most dangerous of all.

Like something out of their deepest nightmares, the ships of the Knotted Man step out into the full light of day, trailing behind them the death-reek of cages, the weight of a silent voice leaning on their thoughts, the terror of a blade tracing along Toothless' throat, the frantic helplessness of knowing themselves trapped, the soul-deep revulsion of a man who roared like a dragon and foamed at the mind to bite the world.

And they are – _he is here!_ _He cannot be here!_

_Panic _cracks across the flock like the sharp lash of a whip, breaking the bright harmony that danced between them all like a spider's web. The white dragons scatter screaming, drowning under the weight of nightmares not their own, trying to fade away even as their scales coruscate the bright alarms of _danger-terror-flee!_

Into the midst of them, the hunting-lifting dragons charge, roaring, their crab-claw forelegs snapping out to rip into unmarked white scales. The cage they still pull beneath them lurches sharply. It creaks, and as Toothless comes about on instinct, everything he is screaming at him to _run!_ even into the teeth of another enemy, Hiccup recognizes the sounds of metal strained beyond its limits.

But that is quickly drowned beneath the flood of frenzied _desperation _to escape the demon of all their nightmares, who left them with so many scars in body and soul –

– who is _dead_, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss know_ this! They killed him to protect each other, with fire and blade, and they set even the poor lost one Like Them free!

_**No!**_ Hiccup grabs hold of, shoving something dragons _know_ into the link that binds them all.

Dead is _dead._

The Knotted Man cannot be here, _is _not here, and _they have their flock to protect!_

For the white dragons Like Them who have followed them into the unknown, so far and so fast; for the dragons of Berk who may have been betrayed; for their flock-family in the icebound nest that still feels like home; for _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ most of all, Hiccup scatters the nightmares like a paw slammed into a puddle, and looks again.

The ships are all but empty, with no dragons chained to them, and the _pfikingr_ nests of Berk are seething with humans who move strangely, standing in clusters as if snarling at each other. The colors of a few, familiar dragons flash from the tops of nests.

Something _is _wrong here – _they were right!_ Hiccup folds his smaller body down to his dragon-self's shoulders with grim determination and feels Toothless steady beneath his touch, ready to fly once more.

Together, with all their shared strength, they drive their nightmares from the minds of their frightened flock-mates, and call them in to fly just a little further.

Scorching in high over the _pfikingr _of Berk with their enemies close behind and those Like Them at their flanks, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ howl triumph and warning, the headlong sound that makes even the bravest men cower: _we hunt!_

And in an instant, every racing dragon flips around together, snap-quick.

Fire erupts over Berk like the sun.

* * *

_To be continued._

**Author's Note: **There's no way I'll be able to have the next chapter ready in a week. Too many moving pieces. Sorry. See you on August 23rd.


	20. Chapter 20

_**Freefall, **_**Part Twenty**

The Great Hall is the biggest space on Berk. Rafters and roofbeams, blackened by generations of hearth-fires, vanish into the darkness high overhead. On long winter nights when the entire tribe has crowded into the hall, setting up camp and trading furs and quilts back and forth, there's always that one child who wakes everyone up with a shout that echoes as clearly as any canyon. Enormous carvings twine up pillars as tall as the mightiest trees, dragons locked in combat with Vikings and Vikings fighting other Vikings and ships awash in raging seas. Berk's history looks down on Berk's people, always.

It still makes Stoick feel like there's not enough air for them all. There was more space in his little house, alone but for his ghosts, than in here with all of Berk trapped within.

A wisp of sunlight curls through the ugly hole punched through one of the great doors, but the darkened hall feels like night. No one tends to the fires burning low in the hearths. Embers glow sullenly in unraked coals, drowning in their own ashes. Sometimes a coal _pop_s, scattered sparks dying uselessly on the stone. What's the point of tending them? Enough people heard Dagur's threat to burn the hall down entirely, with them all inside it, if they made trouble.

From where he sits at the foot of his big chair, Stoick watches the people he's spent his whole life protecting as they drift into tight, whispering knots and settle restlessly into extended families. Children sleep under tables or in their fathers' laps as their mothers mutter urgently to each other, trading rumors and curses and complaints. In one corner, Gothi rebinds a wounded arm with little more than a fire-warmed strip of cloth, patting Myk's shoulder patiently. Myka stands over him, arms folded, tapping her foot as she looks for something to take her frustration out on. More chairs to break, perhaps.

"The splinters might be more dangerous," Valka's too-young voice says as Stoick looks past the pile of makeshift clubs, without any of the amusement that should go with the joke. He glances up see her sitting in the chair that used to be his, a gangly girl wrapped in a motley cloak.

Stoick shrugs, silently. There are too many people around for him to speak to her, but he knows she'll understand: _what else can they do?_

Grumbling under the low buzz of anxious conversations, Gobber stumps through the maze of tiny fiefdoms, from the size of a blanket to the reach of a family, that the imprisoned Vikings have carved out of the Great Hall's floor. Stoick knows his old friend well enough to see that Gobber's a bit off balance, without the weight of _something _filling the space of his long-lost hand. Along with a dozen others, he puts an eye to one of the cracks in the hall doors and peers out. A moment later, everyone at the barricaded door starts jeering and hammering on the thick wood.

Yesterday, just to keep everyone busy, Gobber had held an insult contest, urging Berk's Vikings to come up with foul things to call the invaders who locked them up in here, especially Dagur. The children had been hustled away to the kitchens with hands over their ears, every one of them fussing to stay and listen. Stoick hasn't heard some of those words since the worst days of the war with the dragons.

Now, everyone at the door jumps back with jumbled cries of alarm.

"More arrows, probably," Valka echoes Stoick's thoughts. The doors are thick enough to resist a few crossbow bolts, but no one likes to see an arrowhead coming for their eye. Out of the corner of his vision, he can see the shade's slim, bare feet kicking restlessly.

Stoick longs to reach over and set a hand on them, to hold them still and just to touch her, but he never can. Instead, he looks up and around, searching. There are so many high places to climb in here, so many shadows to explore, so maybe –

"No," Valka says, her face regretful. "He can't be in here, Stoick."

Under his breath, Stoick finishes, "Too human." The only children in here are living ones, sobbing for more food after the bare rations they found already in the kitchens, wailing for their pet Terrors, or demanding to know _why _they can't go outside.

"Bad men are keeping us in here," Stoick hears a weary grandfather repeating, "and they took all our weapons."

"Yeah, else we would have chopped our way out by now," growls his wife, popping her knuckles heavily. For most of Berk's Vikings, the shock and the disbelief of the stinging defeat has worn off.

Discontentment and anger and calls for a counterattack now hiss through the Great Hall, muted but eager, and it's that voice Stoick is listening to. Not for a moment would he tell his people not to fight back. All he's asked them to do, as the closest thing to a chief they have with Astrid gone, is wait for the right chance. Attack before they're ready, and they'll only be caught off-kilter again.

And yet, from a lifetime of battles, Stoick knows that they can't wait forever. Sit on anything long enough, and it'll go flat. Even stones crumble, with enough time and pressure and a sharply discouraging blow or two.

And be _damned_ if they accept this loss as the end of Berk's story.

When Stoick was a boy, he and his friends had hidden jars under tables and along the wall, challenging each other to knock them down with stones. The game had usually turned into a free-for-all of sneaking up on hapless clay jars like they were nesting dragons, spoiling their friends' throws, and hurling stones at each other, until the hall rang with yells and _thunk_s and shattering clay.

Now, the jars scattered around are carefully hoarded water jugs and bowls of endless stew, but even the always-simmering cauldron is starting to run empty. "There's nothing left to fill it back up with," Hilda had whispered to Stoick this morning, as she tried to push one of the last bowls on him. He'd handed it back to her firmly, for once not because of her poor cooking, and told her to give it to someone else.

Movement catches his eye as one of the Nokkvesson boys runs out of the tunnel leading around to the kitchens, waving something bright over his head. "Found another one!" he tries to yell and whisper at the same time, just in case the men outside are listening in, and a dispirited cheer goes up for the kitchen knife and the boy brandishing it in the air.

"Aye, and if we kin only find a hundred more o' em, tucked away in th' midden or somesuch, we might get allaway t' th' bottom o' the stairs 'fore we're all slaughtered," Gobber grumbles, creaking across the dais before collapsing awkwardly to the ground beside his friend. He'll hate it if Stoick reaches out and catches him – Gobber _loathes _being helped – so Stoick doesn't.

"How does it look out there?" Stoick asks instead.

"'bout as good as it does in 'ere," is Gobber's half-snarled answer, glaring at the blond youth as he fends off Gustav and Rudel and that boy Dogtail. Spitelout snatches the knife off him and throws it in the small pile of makeshift weapons.

Gobber keeps talking, but Stoick's heart slams into a dead run as Valka's shade snaps to attention in the oversized chief's chair, head coming up as alertly as a dragon. She turns that face Stoick loved so up towards the rafters far overhead, her lips parting in the beginning of a gasp, her eyes wide. Her hands form fists along the length of the bandolier strapped across her chest.

"Stoick!" she cries, bright and clear, and of course no one else hears her. "Listen!"

Lifting a hand to silence Gobber, Stoick looks where she's pointing – up, and off-center, high in the side of the Great Hall's roof. The hall is full of muttering Vikings and arguing teenagers, sniffling children and snoring grandmothers, and the high-pitched shrieks of the few baffled Terrible Terrors who were caught in here with them. But once he sorts through all that, Stoick can hear a strange hissing noise, like a lid left on a kettle left to boil. It sounds almost like a new fire.

He may be getting older, he may be going mad, but dammit, there is nothing wrong with his hearing.

Among the dark of the roofbeams, a splotch forms on the ceiling. It burns dark, but it burns.

"_Hsst!_" Stoick says, or something like it, scrambling to his feet and hauling Gobber up with him, pointing with his free hand. The sudden movement catches his Vikings' attention, and in moments, everyone in the Great Hall is staring up like so many hungry chickens, mouths open.

"What is that?" someone says, and a flurry of speculation breaks out.

"Fire arrows! They're burning us down –"

"The roof is melting!"

"Maybe there's snow still up there?"

"Don't be stupid, Sven, it's clearly –"

One thing everyone can agree on is that no one wants to stand under it. As the splotch spreads and the smell of burning gets stronger, everyone spreads out.

Vikings grab broken table legs and hold chair pieces like short spears, fight briefly over who gets to wield the double handful of kitchen knives and who gets the ladles, and raise their fists. Mulch grabs the bucket off Bucket's head and swings it like a mace. Bucket scrambles under a table with the rest of the children, his hands fixed firmly over his scalp. Myka snatches up a log of firewood and puts herself between her brother and Gothi and the mysterious splotch.

Brighter it burns, and brighter, and then, in a scattering of ashes and scorched, oily thatching and…blazing droplets of stone, splattering against the flagstones…it burns through.

Sunlight pours down the new hole in the ceiling, and then it's partially blocked by a shadow.

In ragged unison, everyone takes one hand off their weapons and shades their eyes, squinting into the light.

"Is tha' a Gronkle?" Grandpa Nokkvesson says.

The stocky dragon peers down into the wide hole it's made as small flames lick around the edges, smoke billowing, and its tongue lolls out in a grin.

"Now, wait ye jest a second," Gobber mutters. "Kin ye hear arguing?"

But before Stoick can answer, the Gronkle yelps and scrambles away, its face in the hole replaced by the long muzzle of an oversized, lazy-eyed, dark red Monstrous Nightmare, stripes zigzagging down his long neck. Some attempt has been made to paint him green and brown, but his true colors show through, so he looks less like a forest than a mud puddle on fire. A riding saddle perches right behind his head, straps and reins trailing.

"Fearsome!" a familiar voice hisses from above. "Get your stupid face outta the way – fine then, don't, see if I care, stupid lumpbrained waste of fish –" and Snotlout scrambles halfway through the hole, trying to hang onto his helmet and his dragon's neck at the same time. Stripes like Fearsome's streak across his face and the horns of his helmet.

"Oi, you lot," Snotlout calls down, "this is a rescue, got it?"

Stoick can count on one hand the times he's been pleased to see Snotlout, whom he's always considered to be a petty bully and in general a smaller version of his father the constant malcontent.

Now? Now he's the best thing Stoick's seen all day – excluding his Val, of course, who's kneeling on the seat of his former chair, resplendent in green and gold, beaming up at Fearsome as he peers down at the hall. Stoick can only hope it gets better from here. But hope he does.

"And what d'ye think ye're doin' up there, boy?" that malcontent demands, his voice swinging into outrage like a man chopping with a familiar axe. Spitelout pushes through the chattering, waving crowd and plants himself right under the hole in the roof, fists planted on his hips and his face screwed up into well-worn angry lines.

"Where've ye been, aye? Jauntin' around with tha' Astrid girl and leavin' yer own family t' be locked up and half starved – huh, ye missed all the fightin', you did, off playing wi' dragons again! Get down here reet now, son, or I'll –"

Snotlout rolls his eyes, cutting through his father's tirade. "Pack it in, Dad," he says. "Do you know what the plan is? Didn't think so. You don't even know there's a plan. But there is! No swords for you."

"Now listen 'ere –!"

"And you're done, Spitelout," Stoick rumbles, catching his distant cousin in a headlock and steering him away. "Shut up. I always enjoy saying that," he confides to anyone who happens to be listening, which is everyone.

Ignoring both Spitelout's sputtering rage and Gobber's cheerful announcement of "I allus like hearin' it, mind," Stoick steps forward and clicks his fingers for Snotlout to pay attention.

"Snotlout, report. What've you got?"

"Buncha swords and stuff – yeah, you heard me, Dad!" Snotlout leans even further over the edge of the hole to glare at his father. "_Astrid_ figured you'd need 'em, Fearsome and me were gonna fix all this ourselves – whoa!"

A moment of confused flailing later, Snotlout's hauled out of the hole by the back of his tunic and Fishlegs takes his place, to no one's surprise. There's a Gronkle involved. Where else would Fishlegs be?

"Hi everyone," Fishlegs calls down in a very loud whisper. "Snotlout, keep down! If that lot see us, we're so busted! Uh. Right. Hi Berk! Astrid sent us, so it's not all this guy here."

"Hey!" Snotlout says audibly, and Fishlegs, along with everyone in the hall, shushes him.

Fishlegs announces, "We've come to break you out and get our island back," and the guards are forgotten: the Vikings all around Stoick break into a cheer, throwing their fists and their children into the air.

"Uh, let's see." Fishlegs pulls a face, counting things off on his thick fingers as he thinks. "Weapons coming down just as soon as Snotlout gets them off Fearsome – get the _rope_, Snotlout, remember? We borrowed them off the Berserkers, there's a ton… Can you break down the door? The barricades don't look very strong. And then you need to sit tight a bit longer. Wait until we give the signal, because Astrid's on her way back too."

"Aye, doors en't meant t' be barred from outside," Gobber nods when Stoick checks with him, just a glance that says it all. "S'posed to be our last-stand fortress, this was."

A few of Berk's Vikings aren't climbing on tables to catch the double-layered fishing net, stuffed full of weapons, descending from the ceiling on a rope. A few of them hear that, and familiar faces turn to Stoick with a question in their eyes.

"It won't be," Stoick promises, and raises his voice to the rest of the room. "We're only adrift in a storm, people. We're not sunk yet."

Even if he can feel the ocean lapping around his ankles, even if the ship he steered for so long is creaking and lurching, even if the seas ahead are a gauntlet of hidden rocks and the sky uncertain, Stoick has faith in a chief on dragonback to see them through. They just need to keep bailing until Astrid returns.

And the hole in the ceiling is letting more than just fresh air and light into the Hall. The low, thick cloud of despair that's been sitting over all of them for days, locked up and helpless as strangers ravaged their home, feels like it's blowing away.

Nothing gets Vikings going like the chance to deal out some righteous payback. Gustav's running around to gather up his gang. Gothi scoops up a handful of ashes and starts tugging on sleeves, smearing blessings across the faces of men and fighting women. Mulch grumbles tolerantly through the giant hug a newly re-bucketed Bucket sweeps him into. Madge gathers up all the water jugs she can find and shares them out, promising her neighbors and friends more soon, Astrid is coming home!

Over all their heads, Stoick has eyes only for the shade of the woman he still loves, smiling at him with faith in her eyes, her defiant patchwork cloak blazing from her shoulders, her long hair a crown. She believes in him.

"I always have," says Valka, as close as his elbow for the fleeting darkness of a blink, and then she's gone.

"Children into the kitchens," Stoick starts giving orders, turning his mind to war as kitchen knives saw through fishing nets and eager hands grab for the treasure trove of dangerous things. Fishlegs sends down a sack of whetstones, and Gobber jumps at the chance to put people to work. "I need people on the doors – quietly now! – to watch for the guards."

In a carrying hiss, Fishlegs adds, "Snotlout's keeping watch – _Snotlout, _go move, stay low – on them too. Unless he falls over the edge again."

"Is this an ambush?" a low, soft voice asks at Stoick's side, and Stoick looks down to see the berserker boy, Gull, standing there. "If we're here, and Astrid's coming in from somewhere else, it sounds like an ambush."

"It does," Stoick agrees. Gods, the kid's so blond. He's already got two axes slung over his shoulders, even as older warriors squabble over who gets what. Nobody gets between Gull and a weapon. "What are you thinking?"

"If Dagur's soldiers don't know we've broken out, they won't see us coming. Maybe we can rescue Astrid too, if she needs us."

Stoick grunts, "Huh. What are you, ten? That's not bad." Gobber lurches through the crowd to present him with a massive, rough-edged club, and Stoick takes it before it slips through Gobber's single hand. It's not his warhammer, but it's a solid weight over his shoulders.

It feels right, now that he's got a reason to fight again, and his heart is steady in his chest.

"Fighters on the doors," Stoick orders as the Vikings of Berk ready themselves for battle in the shadows of the Great Hall. "Be ready."

Edda tears by, cheering quietly. "Astrid's coming home!" the girl cries. "We're all going home!"

* * *

"It's not as bad as it looks," says Astrid.

"Really?" Heather's words are light, but her arms, wrapped tight around Astrid's belly, betray her as her hands clench into fists. "Great, because that looks like a lot of people down there, and none of them like me. Or you. Or Stormfly. And those things are _huge_."

Astrid knows Heather's staring in amazement down at the massive iron ships, at anchor beyond Berk's harbor like some gods-cursed storm has washed up a particularly nasty drift of wrecked wood. Beyond, her home calls to her. "Those – how are they even floating? Their keels must run deeper than I can dive…"

Ship girl. Astrid smiles.

"Just keep an eye on them for me," Astrid says as Stormfly banks into the wind, chirring nervously, and lays an easy hand on her Nadder's side. "Most of them are gone, actually –" She recognizes the ones that remain as dragon carriers. Gods, damn Drago forever please: sincerely, Astrid. "– but they've got some pretty impressive siege weapons. Steady, girl."

Years ago, she walked the roofbeam of the Great Hall, just because Snotlout said she couldn't do it.

It could be done; there were footholds and grips carved into the stone walls, old before her grandmother had been born. Everything needs fixing on Berk sooner or later, especially under dragon raids. She just didn't want to do it.

But she had. She'd spat on her hands and tied back her hair – not in that order – and ignored the pack of eager-eyed boys waiting to see her fall.

She'd put her hands to the first grips, and she'd climbed. She'd kept her eyes on the next handhold and her belly to the stone, and closed her ears to the wind that howled louder with every span of height.

Next to the climb, the walk had been nothing. The walk was _easy. _The worst was over.

(She'd been wrong about that; she still had to get down.)

With nothing ahead of her but what she'd promised to do, and no way back, everything had been so simple. That same eerie clarity, like the first true sunbeam of dawn, pours through her now.

"I don't need them taking us down. Be my eyes?"

"All the way," Heather says. "Yeah. We can do this. You can do this. You know that, right?" Her fists close tight on the edges of Astrid's bear cloak, fluttering in the backdraft of Stormfly's wings. "We've got this. Thanks for everything, Astrid. Let's not die."

Astrid laughs, bright and real. "Not today," she agrees. Heather's been trying to reassure her since Astrid pulled her friend up behind her into the saddle, traded grins for their war-painted faces, and cried out, "Up, Stormfly!" Since it's helping Heather, Astrid can't bear to tell her that she doesn't need it.

She's fine.

Everything is in motion, and nothing Astrid can do will stop it, and the iron bars wrapped around her chest since those ships appeared on her horizon have snapped free. She can breathe again without choking on her air. She can run without a knife in her side. She's halfway through a lunge, and all she has to do is follow through and mind her footing.

Astrid's world is crisp and clear around her, vivid with the sunlight and the freedom of flight. Stormfly's still floating high above Berk, but everything she can bet has been thrown down.

The fight is still her dance, and the music hums through her.

Astrid has her two best friends at her back and her people waiting for her, her home beneath her dragon's wings and her foe before her, and she bargains with her axe in her hand.

One way or another, this ends.

"Stormfly, home," Astrid says, and Stormfly shrieks a challenge. Her blue-dappled friend furls her wings and stoops into a gliding dive, slow and elegant. Nothing near to an attack dive.

This fight won't be won with fire from the sky.

From here, she can see the ruins of Gobber's forge, and the wreckage of a few houses. She can only hope there was no one in them when they went down, or Dagur's going to start owing her fingers. The small treasures of her people are piled up in open spaces, and even from above, Astrid can smell meat charring in rough firepits. Berk looks like the bad old days of dragon raids again, except she never saw those days from the air.

And back then, she didn't have Snotlout, lying low to the roof of the Great Hall, peering over the eaves. They've all gotten a lot better at heights since that day Astrid and Stormfly first followed Hiccup and Toothless laughing into the sky. Someone's made Snotlout take off his helmet, and someone – likely Fishlegs, waving hurried encouragement before ducking down behind Minnow again – has piled torn-up thatch over him. Fearsome lolls over the central roofbeam where Astrid had once walked, where Madge had sat her watch over the ostentatious threat of the blockade, where dragons had perched and basked in the sun. And, Astrid swears, will do again.

She can't wave back at them, but they're where they should be, and – yes, if she raises her head and pretends to ignore the crowd gathering under Stormfly's flight, there are flashes from the tallest tree on Berk, sunlight dancing back from the sightless eye of a spyglass, probably as the twins fight over it from their treehouse.

"Gods, it never feels good to be the bait," Heather mutters into her ear as Stormfly descends, aiming for the much-trodden dust that claims to be Berk's town square. "Done it before, hated it every time. We get out of this, I'll show you the scars."

Astrid, watching her angles, tugs lightly on one of Stormfly's straps. "Swing around, my girl," she murmurs, and no matter how many times they do it, it's always a thrill when she asks something of Stormfly and Stormfly listens because she _wants _to. Wingbeats ruffle through Astrid's long hair, confined only by a single tie, and scores of strange faces turn to follow dragon and riders. Some of them glare out from beneath animal skulls and grubby pelts. Some wear helmets and black iron pauldrons and leather guards. Most of them wear scowls, but some of them wear sneers.

So, just like walking the roofbeam, then.

"We're not the bait," she whispers back, before the snarling crowd can hear them. None of them are getting too close, anyway. A Nadder on the defensive, tail-spikes bristling and fire crackling in her jaws, claims a pretty wide perimeter. "We're the trap."

And in plain view of their enemies, Stormfly flares her wings back and sets her claws to the ground of Berk. A light landing, but Astrid feels it like the haft of her axe smacking into her hand.

_Home._

Astrid's out of her straps and off Stormfly's back almost before her Nadder can fold her wings, setting her boots into Berk's soil once again. _I came back._ She'll say it to her people, when she can. Until then, she can stand in Stormfly's shadow and show no fear to all the eyes upon her, to the people who have taken her home to plunder and her people hostage, and chased her dragons away.

Behind her, Heather jumps from dragon's back to ground with the grace of someone who's spent most of her life at sea, dipping to one knee for balance before rising again in a single smooth motion. There's no one Astrid would rather have at her shoulder, but these first steps, at least, she must take alone.

"Guard her for me?" Astrid asks, tugging the tie from her hair and letting it flow loose again. She unbuckles her favorite double-headed axe from Stormfly's flight gear, which Heather always calls rigging. Despite what over a hundred soldiers standing between her and her people, and doubtless more she can't see, even the memory makes her smile.

Also, it's not the only weapon strapped to Stormfly's side.

"Ha. I'm guarding you for her," Heather tosses back, her face paler than usual beneath her dark hair, her green eyes just that slightest bit too wide. But her hand on Astrid's shoulder is all the anchor they both need. "Let's get 'im."

A single arrow could end this before it begins, as Astrid steps into the open. The threat itches down her spine with every measured step, but Astrid takes each one with the surety of someone who's walked this ground all her life. This is her island. It won't throw her from its back.

And Dagur won't lose the victory he dreams of to some idiot with a bow. She's sure of that.

But the chance still makes her wish she's broad enough to wear plate armor.

If Berk is her home, the rough square must be the front step, so Astrid stands tall and knocks.

"Dagur!" she shouts, not a scream of protest but a ringing challenge, the Chief of Berk come home again to fight for her tribe. "You took Berk. You didn't take me."

The eyes of these people who followed the rage of one madman, who came here in the manipulative hands of another one, who raided her village on the command of a pretender, are all on her. One woman, not tall, with an axe in her hand and a bear pelt on her shoulders, a dragon and a thief at her back, the taste of ashes on her tongue.

"Here I am," says Astrid, and knows she's hit her mark.

She hears Dagur before she sees him, and isn't at all surprised. Her heart is a steady beat at the base of her throat. The ringing in her ears like someone's caught her a blow – Dagur's hit her where it hurts, but never again – is gone. Her hands are warm against the well-worn grain of her axe, and though she doesn't let her foot move, her toes tap to match the drums and leap.

Everything sings just right – including the broad-chested, red-haired man who bursts through the crowd like a sneeze, though doubtless he thinks himself a bull.

"Ha!" Dagur shouts. "I knew you'd crawl home in the end! Too late, _Astrid_!" He draws her name out like she hasn't broken noses for that before. The crude always think they're clever. "Admit it – I win! Took your island and your dumb tribe, too! Knew you lot weren't worth anything without your pet dragons!" He points at her and laughs for a moment before cutting himself off in mid-chortle, glaring around with that sudden snap of wrath that makes talking to Dagur, or standing anywhere near him, such an adventure. "Well?"

The gathered crowd laughs dutifully along with him, although Astrid spots many of them rolling their eyes.

Satisfied, Dagur folds his arms. "You ran away like a scared little girl, and look what happened. Serves you right. What kind of chief runs away?"

"Well, you, for one."

Dagur's head snaps up, jaw dropping in shock that instantly becomes the same incandescent rage Astrid had provoked him into on that lead ship. It feels like years ago. It can't have been more than three weeks. "_You!_" he roars, stepping forward, staring at Heather. His ragged red hair might actually bristle, or maybe it's just the sea wind. Too bad he's too heavy to blow away. Hard way it is. "Thieving, treacherous little –"

Astrid flings her axe out like Stormfly's wing. _Stay right there, Dagur. Eyes on me._ "She's with me." She doesn't give Dagur a chance to argue before she pushes on. "You've got Berk. Did you really think I'd come here with nothing to trade?"

It's odd enough to surprise him, which is all she'd wanted. "Whaddya mean, trade?" he asks suspiciously, scratching at the back of his head. "Thought she was your buddy and all. I know you helped her steal my Berserkers from me. Huh, if they're even Berserkers at all anymore. Hafta call 'emselves Girlpets or something."

He's got his sword hand wrapped tightly around the hilt, though, knuckles white.

"Yeah, I did," Astrid admits freely. It's no secret. "You left your people to go their own way, and when I found someone worthier to lead them, I brought them together. And I'd do it again." She would. Every time.

"But I want my island back. So what do you say, Dagur? Double or nothing," she offers, resting her axe on her shoulder, just where she won't cut her own head off if she has to swing it in a hurry. One day she should really be grateful to Stoick for making her practice with a wooden one so often. No one's all that showy and dramatic with the back of their skull missing.

"Berk and Berk's chief, _and_ the Berserkers. If you win. Fight me for them both, if you dare." _I faced _Drago_, you reckless brat. You don't scare me._ "A duel, if you think you can beat me to my face, not sneaking around behind my back like the _thief _you just called Heather, you hypocrite."

"Hey, I –" Dagur snarls, and since Astrid's pretty sure the rest of that is _beat you proper_, and it won't include _using the hand-me-downs from a warlord I'd run scared from_, she talks right over him. The crowd's attention is drifting. She can't have that, so she slaps them.

"And if I win, you clear out! Take your fur-faced bilge scrapings and your stupid laugh and your rusty barges and pack them back off to the tavern back-alley gutter you dredged them out of –"

Oh, _now _she's got their attention! She fights not to laugh at them all; no one deserves to be laughed at more than Dagur will have already done. Mostly. Someone off to her right is muttering, probably translating; she can hear offended snarls on a few seconds' delay, more than cancelled out by Heather's snickering. Dagur's turning a fantastic shade of purple. Fine by her; she's got plenty to yell and he's running out of time.

Astrid points her axe at him scornfully. "What, are you too scared to fight a girl? But then, you know I _can _beat you, don't you? I always have, you third-rate pretender. Man up and fight me straight, or get lost."

"_You –_" Dagur snarls, hauling his sword from its sheath with the scream of metal on metal, and calls her bad things. Any second now, if she's lucky, he's going to jump up and down. Good luck keeping the respect of his secondhand soldiers, if he does – it looks ridiculous.

But he doesn't. Somehow, he takes a deep breath, veins pulsing in his temples, and grits his teeth. A moment later, he bursts into laughter again. "Hahahaha! You wish! Nice try!"

He sneers. "Why would I do that? I _won_ – and you _lost_, or you wouldn't be slinking back here trying to bargain. Warriors _take!_ I took your precious Berk and _they'll _take your pet dragons, and we'll see how far your little friend there gets without you. Just far enough to show me where _my _tribe is, I bet!"

Rolling his eyes melodramatically, Dagur turns on one heel and shouts, "Right then –"

– _guys_, he doesn't finish, because there aren't so many houses in the village that he can't see past them. Everyone gave the forge a wide berth for generations, and it's never been wise to build too closely on Berk. If dragons didn't burn something down, your neighbors would, every time. So even with his borrowed army all around, Dagur can see up the slope towards the Great Hall.

Drago's former warriors have been watching the show with the confidence of knowing all their enemies are two girls and a dragon right in front of them. But some distance behind them, there's a wave of angry, rearmed Vikings.

Coming to take their home back. Astrid loves them all.

The doors of the Great Hall stand open, crumpled lumps of ambushed guards among the scattered barricade. A couple have been knocked all the way down the stairs, rammed by a charging Gronkle. Fearsome perches on the wide forecourt of the threshold, playing with something beneath his claws as Snotlout yanks futile commands at his bridle.

Berk's warriors haven't exactly been tiptoeing down the hill towards the village. Stoick, a colossus in the vanguard with a war club over his shoulder, couldn't tiptoe if he tried, and gods, is Astrid happy to see him.

Astrid doesn't get to see Dagur's jaw drop, or that purple drain from his face as he sees Berk's fighting force creeping towards him. But she bets it's a picture.

She does see the mob of invading soldiers and ambush raiders and dragon hunters and weathered scouts and slinking spies, all Drago's leftovers still fighting their master's war, follow their supposed leader's gaze. She does get to hear the people who raided her home shout with surprise, curse each other for not paying attention, and yell a far-too-late alarm.

And in an instant, her audience dissolves into the chaos and shoving of everyone trying to raise their weapons at once, scattering around Dagur – momentarily dumbstruck, how nice – towards the real fight.

As they run, Dagur turns on Astrid with disbelief in his eyes. "_No –" _he snarls. "You – you can't – I won!"

"Gotcha, you bastard," says Astrid. "_Berk, to me!_"

And in an instant, Berk erupts into war.

Shouting invaders leap for her, swords drawn, and Astrid swings her axe into a flurry of sweeping blows she knows better than the steps down to the harbor, her feet moving instinctively as she parries. The spins and blocks to fend off both heads of a Zippleback hold them all and their stinking breath at bay, the _clang_ of metal against metal shuddering down her arms, and then Heather's beside her, her friend's shoulder against hers. Heather slides her axe-staff in beneath Astrid's blade, up and into the face of a man who stumbles backward with a yelp, fouling the swing of the man next to him.

"That went well," Heather grits out, ramming the other bladed end of the staff into someone's gut, making him retch. She moves into position at Astrid's back, just as if this was another day in the arena, fighting together for the joy of it.

The arena is smoke and charred stone, just like the ashes of the forge blackening her boots and rough beneath her feet, but that joy shines golden and clear through Astrid as she laughs in the faces of their foes, taps her heel against Heather's for her friend to follow, and yells, "_Berk and the dragons!_"

Stormfly screams overhead in a low glide, sharp claws snatching, and Astrid senses more than sees Heather lunge for a man aiming a crossbow up at her, slicing the bright edge of her axe-staff through the bowstring. It snaps like a bone, the recoiling string whipping into the arm of the unlucky archer, and his shriek is all the music Astrid needs as her dance plays on.

And beyond the startled mob, as Stormfly drops her first catch onto the heads of the other soldiers and takes out at least three flailing men more, the roar of Berk's army answers.

Wordless and chaotic and furious, and Astrid knows every voice as they charge, borrowed swords ringing off invaders' blades. Spitelout bats aside a spear and sends a man in a wolf-skin cloak crumpling as they collide head-on. Someone squeals as Murtagh slips around the corner of a house and sinks one of his twin knives into the guy's knee from behind. They flow through the buildings of their village like the tide reclaiming the shore, storming through the channels like a wave up a fjord, sweeping everything before them with the advantage of surprise and the fire of revenge well-due.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Dagur's screaming orders and curses – "Get them! Bring 'em down! You lot are _useless!_ Astrid! _Astrid!_ Just a couple of dragons, aren't you people supposed to be good at these things?" – but he's not saying anything they don't know, so no one's listening. Probably only Dagur's surprised.

"Astrid, I'm gonna get you for this!"

"So come get me!" Astrid shouts back at him. She's lost sight of him, but Dagur can't even pronounce subtle, much less practice it – he's across the square, to her left as she races for another archer taking aim at Stormfly, knowing Heather's close at her back, fending off blows. Stormfly drops another victim into the crush, knocking people down; a pack of Nokkvesson boys run straight over the lot, throwing punches like their mother beating dough into bread. Stormfly circles and climbs and banks and descends again, searching for her next target, heedless of the man with crossbow drawn –

A screaming man in a wolf cloak stumbles into her rider's path and decides to make a stand of it, hefting a gnarled club that Astrid would take a lot more seriously if it didn't look like a chicken leg, and if he wasn't in her _godsdamned way_ -! But he's big enough to wield it like table scraps, and Astrid stumbles back, pushing Heather clear as the chunk of armored wood hisses down between them. Only years of practice dodging dragon tails keeps her moving, out of the way of the backhanded blow that roars up, an impact that would have blown her knees to dust. But beyond him, as Berk's Vikings fight the soldiers who invaded their home, that archer sets the stock of his crossbow against his shoulder and lets fly –

Astrid's scream of denial goes unheard in the roar of pitched battle and the louder, desperate silence ringing in her own ears as the arrow snaps out, and under the deafening roar and blazing fire of Fearsome, scorching through the air over them all and burning the shot from the sky.

Stormfly circles on unharmed, and Astrid's scream climbs upward to relief and gratitude, and above them all, Snotlout bellows that stupid godsdamned war cry of his, and she's never been so happy to hear it in all her life.

Her riders suck at teamwork, but when it matters, they come through.

"Down!" Heather cries, and Astrid drops to her knees, slicing out at the legs charging for her as a spear-thrust goes over her head, right where her heart would have been; above that, Heather's axe-staff buzzes in a return swipe, driving the spear-carrier back. Warriors fall, yelling for their shattered shins or sliced chests, and Astrid rolls back up to her feet without missing a breath.

_Thanks_, she doesn't have to say; Heather knows, and grins at her with the same wild rush of battle Astrid flows right back into, cutting and smashing her way across the square.

Berk's Vikings held their home against hundreds of years of dragon raids.

Dagur and these remnants of Drago's army thought _people _were going to move them?

Astrid's getting these people off her island if it's the last thing she bloody well does, but if it's the last thing _they _do, that'll work too.

All around her, battle rages, shouts and screams and the ring of sword against axe and the _thud _of sling-stones echoing off the sides of small houses and little market-stalls, and off skulls, too. Raiders chase Gustav into an alley between two houses, and almost immediately, the lot of them come flying back out, arcing through the air like a god has slapped them with a flat hand.

Close enough; Minnow barrels out of the alley, buzzing angrily, Fishlegs waving a heavy-headed cudgel from her broad back. His usually amiable face is screwed tight with righteous justice, painted in Gronkle-camouflage green and brown quite unlike Astrid and Heather's Stormfly-blue streaks, declaring their allegiance for all to see. Gustav, his face and front dusty, races back into the fray at Minnow's tail, the two Vikings yelling wordless challenges to the mob.

"There he is!" Heather shouts nearly into Astrid's ear, grabbing her arm and pointing, and Astrid takes off running again.

"Dagur! _Dagur!_ Stand and fight me, Dagur!"

For all his talk, Dagur's in no great hurry to fight her fair – Astrid hadn't been joking that she's always won. She knows Dagur had counted each defeat, blackened silver hoarded against the day he'd be able to redeem it all for victory's gold.

The wash of the battle flows, and Astrid feels each wound she sees as her own. Armored men smash her people to the ground, ripping makeshift or borrowed weapons from their hands and hammering down stunning blows. Someone knocks Sven back against a wall, and his head _cracks_ so hard against the stone Astrid hears it even through the melee; he slumps to the ground, and she can only hope he's still alive.

A high-pitched roar of pure rage leads the small blond figure of Gull and the axes Snotlout and Fishlegs brought him, who leads a scattered crowd of Gustav's friends through the battle like a bouncing sheep-bladder ball caught by the wind. But Dagur's raiders are learning fast, and every one of them is bigger than three of him. A single coordinated surge, and the pack of teenagers is broken up like water poured on a copper frypan.

Astrid's about to rush to their rescue, or at least to call for help, when the wolf-headed fighters are attacked by a shark.

The shark happens to scream "Bite! Bite! Bite! _Shaaaaaaaaark!_" like the twins, and zig-zag through the melee above two pairs of skinny legs, but it still catches the raiders off-balance. And then it's all over for them, because Eret and his crew are right behind the twins, sweeping into the fight with stolen trappers' nets strung out between them and their own weapons crashing down, joining the fray with shouts of "Berk! Berrrrrrrrk!" and what sounds like the first strains of a rowing song.

Swords chop down instead of oar-blades, and Barf and Belch bound along in their wake, snapping at anyone the normally silly Zippleback doesn't know. At least, anyone who's still standing. Edda boosts Nessa and Nixie up onto Barf and Belch's back, where they howl prophecies of creative doom and dramatic ghost noises, shaking little kitchen knives.

But Berk still swarms with enemies – how many _are _there? How many couldn't she see from the sky? Curse those duck bunkers, hiding the people they were meant to defend against! Berk's people were outnumbered from the start, and they're outnumbered still, and Astrid, who's spent years at Stoick's side working through the deadly calculus of _what we have _against _what our people need to eat_ and _what we expect to lose_, doesn't like these odds.

Not one bit.

This battle won't be won in blood, either.

"Oh, where are those slowpokes?" Heather says indignantly, interrupting Astrid's dreadful figuring. If she's got a hand free, Astrid's willing to bet her friend has a fist on her hip, green eyes scowling. "Guard my back a moment?"

"You need to ask?" Astrid grins, sweeping out her axe in a clear warning to anyone standing close. "_Hey,_ _you with the rock, I see you!_ _Try it! Yes, you!_"

He throws it somewhere else, but that's no help at all – it just means one more of her Vikings falls to the sling-stone. Coenric, their aging huntmaster, goes down over the spear he must have grabbed from one of his enemies, and Astrid hears a panicked cry of "Dad!" from among Gustav's gang.

But it's a rock that doesn't bring down Heather, as she scrambles up the wreckage of a cart and onto a low roof, sticks two fingers in her mouth and whistles through them, and roars like a captain over a storm, "_Where are you lot?_"

For a moment, she gets no answer, and then, through a breath in the battle, someone shouts "There's so many _stairs!_" It echoes.

And then half a dozen former Berserkers, their faces painted Stormfly-blue, charge out of the stone stairs down to Gronkle Cove, trailed by the rest of Fishlegs' horde. Heavy Gronkles thunder out around them like a wall of charging bulls, the newcomers waving their weapons as they dive into the fight on Berk's side.

"_Rebels for Berk!"_

"_Heather and rebellion!"_

They hit the melee with a series of crashes, even as the invading army shifts to counter them, and start laying about with a vengeance. Somewhere in the fight, Fishlegs yells, "C'mere, babies!", and the stocky dragons make for him no matter who stands in their way.

"That's what we're gonna call ourselves," Heather says cheerfully as she hops down from the roof, clapping a hand down on Astrid's shoulder.

Astrid laughs. "The _Rebel_ tribe. Suits you. I like it." She scans the battle. "I see Stoick!"

Looming like one of their lighthouse statues come to life, Stoick's using that heavy club to good effect, sending men flying with sharp and precise blows, and beating back any group foolish enough to team up on him and give him a ready target. Fur-cloaked raiders, wearing sun-bleached skulls as helmets, circle him like a pack of undead wolves nipping at a bear.

"So let's go say hello," Heather declares, and the two of them join their reinforcements – _not enough not enough not enough!_ some panicked corner of Astrid's mind screams – while Dagur's army fights back.

Stormfly swoops overhead as the two chiefs fight through the churning battle in chops and blows and lunges, Astrid's feet following paths they've taken forever and mean to take many times more. Eret's men sing out in a language she doesn't know, the rhythm familiar, as close to the drumbeat and skirl of battle pulsing through Astrid's heart as she could ask. Cries of _"Berk and the Rebels!"_ go up as Heather's people trip over Astrid's and haul each other up again, turning against their shared enemies.

Fearsome sets an empty house on fire when Snotlout spots his surly Nightmare aiming to burn a clot of people to ashes, Berk's warriors entangled with jittery leather-armored hunters who look like they haven't gotten a good night's sleep in days. Before Fearsome can kill them all, Snotlout throws himself from his saddle, clinging to the reins and pulling the dragon's jagged muzzle askew. Dangling like a fish on a line, Snotlout kicks as many foes as he can in the head, hurling curses at struggling Fearsome and yelping enemies and the ground while he's at it.

Gobber howls past, a fire-blackened hammer in his only hand, with a nod and an, "Aye, good fight, Astrid!" and vanishes into the fray with a _clang-bonggggg-bang-clunk-thump-crash _of hammer on metal to mark his path.

Astrid flips her axe around in her hands and holds it steady as a charging stranger rams himself into it, throwing him back and leaping over him with all the confidence of a hundred fights on this ground, for this village, for these people. Ahead, the wolf-men circle Stoick, yipping eerily, and she signals Heather:

_Split up!_

Like a river parting around a stone, Astrid runs one way and Heather goes another, sending wannabe wolves howling away with torn pelts and bleeding limbs. With half the circle scattering from Astrid and Heather's charge, those too slow to flee are caught by the brutal impact of Stoick's rough club.

"Traded in your warhammer, sir?" Astrid asks as she takes the last few strides to Stoick's side, but never again in his shadow, taking a moment to catch her breath.

Stoick heaves it up over his shoulder again and grins down at her, and at Heather shifting her grip on her axe-staff, sizing up the battle. "Brought your castaway back with you, I see."

"She wouldn't miss it. Hoped you wouldn't either." And he looks so much _better_, like the fight has brought him back to life, or maybe it's the fresh air and the light. His face is drawn and his hair all but grey, his wrists bare of their guards and his thick tunic rumpled, but his eyes are bright and his expression set with determination beneath his beard. Even without his own bear cloak, he looks like the chief and the foster-father Astrid had looked up to all those years, standing tall again rather than bent beneath the shadows he'd hoarded in his little home.

Astrid knows this is her fight to win or lose, but it means everything, to have Stoick here at her side again. Her Berk would be lesser, without him. One day, but like she'd told Heather, not today.

"Welcome home, Chief," Stoick says simply, and Astrid burns with pride.

Everyone Astrid loves is in this fight, with everything she loves at stake, and she knows it all too keenly. Stoick and Heather and Stormfly, her riders and their dragons, all of Berk's people who've fought beside her and fought with her and trusted her to be the chief they need, to keep them safe and lead them on.

But a dark truth sinks into her like a stone.

Surprise after surprise thrown into the battle, and all of them fighting for their lives. But as a momentary lull sweeps over the battle, clusters of fighters stepping back into the company of their allies and sizing up their enemies, planning their attack or their defense or their last desperate stand, Astrid still doesn't like their odds.

Frantically scrambling for ideas as Stormfly comes to roost on the roof of a house just behind her, Astrid takes a deep breath and wonders if she should have staked everything on that duel after all. Not that she had the slightest faith in Dagur to keep to the terms if he lost – oh, and there he is, fuming among a pack of the raiders he brought here. There's blood on his sword that chills Astrid's soul to see.

Whose blood?

There's mud in the square and fresh smears that aren't paint on Berk's stones, and bodies being carried away by their friends on both sides of the battle – dead or stunned or wounded, Astrid can't tell. She doesn't have time to count the dead. All she can do is make sure there won't be too many more.

But how?

Breathless and bloodied – she doesn't remember when, and it doesn't hurt yet, she's not even sure it's her blood – but she's back where she started when Drago's ships first came over her horizon. What does she have to offer, to make them go away? What can she hand Dagur that he wants more than a victory she can't give him, because he's chased _victory _up the stairs until it means the loss of everything she loves?

Astrid shifts her grip on her axe. She's always known she'll die with it in her hands.

Maybe today, after all.

And then, from above, a scream tears across the sky.

Eerie and uncanny, a scream to raise the hackles of brave men, a scream that has lived in the ghost stories of Vikings for centuries. Loud enough to herald the end of the world, Ragnarök breaking open over them: axe and sword and wolves and war, and here comes the wind. A nightmare crying out in the inescapable light of day.

And _familiar._

Everyone, without exception, looks up.

Dragons pour through the sky like lightning slowed just enough to see, quick and graceful like nothing else in the air, racing out of the afternoon sun. There's a swarm of them, a flock, too many to watch, but who cares? Not Astrid. Astrid's got her breath caught in her throat and a cry of pure amazement on her trembling tongue, struck speechless and transported at the sight of them all.

The dragon in the lead is a familiar and welcome shadow, blazing black under the burning sun, but the rest… Oh, the rest.

They are glorious and impossible and beautiful, and they look just like him, like a flock of Furies drawn out in charcoal-black on a hidden ledge of stone, but white as fresh-fallen snow. An entire incredible flock of white Furies zips through the air, chasing after and darting all around Hiccup and Toothless, soaring high on those night-black wings. They race through Berk's sky like a vision, like an omen. _Furies over Berk_ – Astrid's world cracks beneath her and trembles.

Maybe the last thing Astrid wants to do is take her eyes off the flock of Furies streaking over the island. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees scores of hands raised to point, jaws dropped, weapons hanging loose in shocked-still hands. But a shadow catches her eye, and she turns her flabbergasted eyes further.

Behind the Furies, panting and ragged, lurching and swaying on exhausted wings, are four heavy-tusked, broad-shouldered dragons with stinging tails. They're just like the ones Astrid and Heather had fought on what must be Rebel Island now, and they stagger after black dragon and white dragons alike. They move with none of the Furies' grace, and next to the slim lines of the acrobatic Furies, they look barely real.

Something dangles beneath them, tied to all of them, being dragged along roughly, but Astrid doesn't even notice that until it's almost overhead.

Because just then, all those Furies turn at bay in a single sharp _snap_, like they'd practiced it, like someone had blown a whistle and said "Now!"

And fire like an entire storm's worth of lightning flashes blazes through the sky.

The blast leaves afterimages blinking across Astrid's eyes, and in everyone else's, judging by the cries everywhere from Heather right at her elbow to Dagur out across the battlefield, voices she knows and voices she doesn't, momentarily united in their wonder.

Squinting past the pulsing ghosts of the flash, Astrid watches as the arms of the flying craft, one for each dragon, shudder themselves apart. The knotted heart of the thing wobbles beneath them, and the dragons scream pitifully, maybe at the scattering Furies, maybe at being dragged back by the shifting weight of the thing they're chained to, or maybe they're more blinded than the humans below… Their flight falters, and they careen at odd angles through the sky like they don't know where they are anymore.

One arm snaps off entirely as the veering dragons wrench at it, and the freed dragon lurches upwards. Surprised by its sudden weightlessness, it stumbles and falls.

The craft swings wildly, shedding pieces with every frantic heartbeat drumming through Astrid's throat, and gasps go up from the staring armies as the dragons claw at themselves. The wood and metal crumble, and the entire mess crashes towards the ground.

It happens very quickly, and it takes forever, and at the end of it, a crumpled heap of wreckage slumps near the center of Berk's square, and four aggressive, flash-blinded, exhausted, _massively _angry dragons crouch and scream, spike-tipped tails arcing up over their heaving backs.

"Uh oh," chorus Astrid and Heather.

"_Get clear!_" Astrid screams to everyone who'll listen to her, as Heather and Stoick join their voices to hers and Stormfly shrieks alarm. "_Dragons loose!_"

And the four dragons stampede headlong into the dumbstruck crowd, tusks scything, heavy paws drumming, tails lashing, fire roaring from their throats. They charge blindly, their little eyes squinted closed, and they don't care who they strike. They probably don't notice, either.

For a busy few minutes, there are no sides. There are no wolf-cloaked invaders or Berkians or Rebels or dragon trappers or _former _dragon trappers thank-you-very-much or dragonriders or soldiers. There's just the scramble to get away, and not everyone makes it.

But the people of the Archipelago, Berkian and Rebel alike, have been fighting dragons for years, and they know how to dodge, and the Vikings of Berks at least are on their own ground. They know all the hiding places and the corners, they know which ledges will take their weight and which will crumble beneath a charging dragon's feet, they know exactly how many steps it takes to duck behind the scorched but still standing stone lump that was Gobber's forge hearth.

Drago's men?

Drago's men worked with dragons, sure, but they worked with _broken_ ones that never raised their heads or fought back.

Drago's men don't dodge _nearly _as fast. Some of them even try to stand and fight. It doesn't go well.

The flash-blinded and frustrated dragons run right over them. Both exhausted and overstimulated, still trying to chase the cries of circling Furies overhead, they storm through everything and everyone in their path. One of them hits the cliff over the sea and falls, finding its wings before it hits the ocean, barreling blindly out to sea and hopefully gone. One tumbles over one of Berk's cliffs, almost missing a rope bridge and only managing to tear one of the posts from its setting. The other two eventually make it to the forests beyond the village, crashing through more abandoned houses on the way. Astrid wonders just how many dragon traps Drago's men got in place, and how many Eret and his crew managed to pull out.

But only in passing, because as soon as the wave of chaos passes her, Astrid's running for that crumpled heap of wreckage with her axe singing in her hands.

Above, white Furies flutter and mill and perch briefly on rooftops before scattering away from the humans trying to climb to safety. Those Furies stare and swarm and flicker in and out of visibility like Changewings.

And Hiccup and Toothless soar overhead like lightning, like death, triumphant and glorious, roaring in their matching voices fit to terrify any invader left standing. Night Furies are a legend, but a legend _feared_, and from the whimpers and cowering of every stranger staring up at them, they've got to be a death omen to someone.

She's running, but Astrid can't resist pulling up short as they spiral up and around, crowing over the wreckage, to wave at them.

"Hi, you two!" she shouts happily, riding a wave of pure thrill at the sight – she'll never get over seeing them _fly!_ If she didn't know Hiccup was on Toothless' back, she wouldn't even be able to see him; in his black scales, he blends in perfectly, and they really do look like part of each other. They dance among that swarming flock of white Furies like a single raven untouched in a barrage of snowballs, except no raven or snowball ever moved so _prettily!_

_Now_ everyone she loves is here.

And when she glances back over her shoulder, she can see Stoick staring skyward, all but glowing with love and joy, the war club fallen from his hands: his sons are here. He holds one broad palm pressed over his heart, but his face says as clear as a promise that his pain is gone; his other hand is low and open, as if waiting for someone to take it and hold it tight.

It's not meant for her, so Astrid brandishes her axe in the air with a whoop as Night Fury and Wildfire dart through her sky, and keeps running.

She recognizes the battered figure crawling unsteadily from the smoking, twisted wreckage of his flying craft, and be _damned _if she'll let him get away!

"You!" she shouts, slamming her axe into the last intact piece of wood and leaving it stuck there while she hauls Grimmel the Grisly, architect and hidden hand behind all this bloodshed and fear, from the rubble, both hands fisted in the front of his mantle as she drags him to his feet. He's just lucky she didn't get hold of his _neck_.

"You did this!" Astrid yells at him, shaking him firmly just in case he thinks he's allowed to stand up. He doesn't look like it; those sharp eyes are dazed, rolling in their sockets, and his white hair is matted with sweat and slightly charred, scattered with wood splinters. Bruises in the shape of bars are fading into view through his too-pale skin, and one of his arms hangs at an angle that says it's well broken.

"Was it worth it?" she demands, snarling. "You sold _my _dragons to slavers and turned these men loose on my tribe! You threw my people into a war! You gave those _creatures _of yours to Dagur so he could hunt down my friend! And then you just swanned off and _left_, didn't you? And for what?"

Toothless swoops around beyond them both, so anyone who cared could draw a line through Astrid and Grimmel out to the hovering Night Fury and the Wildfire peering over his shoulder, wild green eyes in both faces fixed on Astrid like they're searching for something.

_Where have you been? _Astrid wishes more than ever she could ask Hiccup. Windblown and shaggy auburn hair still tumbles over his shoulders, fleeting sparks of color shimmering among the coat of Fury-black scales he wears like his skin. But there's an intensity in his gaze she hasn't seen since the morning he and Toothless stared down all of Berk in the very last moments of the war, and nothing human in his eyes. Now, as then, she feels in an instant like she's being judged. Like her life, all their lives, are being weighed in inhuman hands.

Whatever they see must please them, to Astrid's unutterable relief, because one of them cries out _laughter _and the other shrieks it back, springing away into the sky in a victorious lap of the village and the cliffs beyond and the sea.

"And _that's _what you wanted to kill?" Astrid growls into Grimmel's face as he blinks, trying to focus on her. It's the first time she's seen him without a smile. She likes him better this way, although still not at all.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Heather range wide around her, axe-staff held flat before her to hold Dagur at bay, just in case he decides to come rescue his ally. Astrid's not betting on it, but let him try if he feels lucky!

"You started this, and I'm stopping it right here," Astrid declares, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Riders to me!"

A flurry of activity erupts behind her as Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the twins sort themselves out, hopefully taking that shark off the twins' heads in the process, and start making their way towards Astrid as she punches Grimmel in the eye – "And that one's for me," she tells him when he garbles a protest – and starts stripping that protective mantle off him. Gods know what he's got hidden under there, and she doesn't need a sneaky knife in her stomach the moment she looks away.

"My dear Astrid," he manages to say; with his once-smooth tongue fumbling its words, he doesn't sound nearly as charming as he'd once mocked her, "I really don't think you have the advantage here."

"I really don't care," she replies, kicking the heap of leather into the wreckage. Maybe they'll burn it all right there. "If nothing else, I'm going to make sure everyone here sees you beaten and disarmed – gimme that –" she says, snatching a belt knife from its hidden sheath and hurling it overarm into the ocean. A cursory ruffle over the rest of him reveals nothing more, so maybe everything else is lost in that smoking heap of rubble. Still, it'll be a long time before she forgets those needles festering in dragon flesh.

Beneath the mantle, he's even skinner than he looked with it, and unless she's mistaken, which she's not, he's broken at least a couple of ribs in that fall. He must be in agony with every breath, and yet he's still managing to _sneer _at her.

"You can't win – none of you," Grimmel spits at the mixed assortment of dragonriders who've finally joined Astrid, encircling him and glaring him down. Without the advantage he'd lectured down at her from, back on that ship, all his pretty words flee and the bile of his true self spills out.

"Working with dragons, _living _with them – they'll turn on you as they will on all people. They're wrong, can't you see? They don't belong here with us, they don't belong anywhere, and you've invited them into your homes. And _that?_" he points skyward, to where Hiccup and Toothless hover, watching again.

Night Fury and Wildfire slip away from his pointing finger like it's a weapon, perching lightly on the unoccupied roof of a market stall. Toothless sits down, and Hiccup folds his clawed hands over one of his dragon-twin's shoulders, resting his chin on them with a snarl; Toothless' tail flicks up before them, slapping out like he's pushing something away.

"That _abomination_," Grimmel seethes, shuddering. "That unholy alliance that turns man to beast and lets a beast think it can counterfeit a man? How can you stand it, Astrid? Doesn't it chill your blood, to imagine it might be _you_, or your daughter someday, lying down with a beast and calling it her kin?"

"You're even more disgusting than they said," Fishlegs says, nodding at the twins. "I didn't know that was possible."

"We're a team," Astrid says to the face twisted with hatred and disgust, nauseous with what she hopes is fear. Let him fear. "We're doing something new because the old way didn't work. What would you have us do? Keep banging our heads against stones? Dragons exist. We have to live with them. We may as well be friends."

"We can get _rid_ of them!" Grimmel shouts, words he might have hidden, words he might have painted with pretty lies and deceptive half-measures and disguised in false concern otherwise, spilling from his mouth like vomit. His eyes roll dizzily, but the hate in them is vivid and deep. "Kill them all and make a _better _world! Drive the beasts away until they _know _they don't belong here, until they never, ever come back! You could – I could do it – you _know _it'd be cleaner that way, without them!"

Astrid steps back with her lips curling in revulsion, wanting to wash her hands and possibly her brain, to apologize to her ears for having to hear such evil things. Similar snarls crease the painted faces of her friends, who understand what it is to trust a dragon with your life and know their lives are safe on dragon wings. They all back away, widening the circle like someone's dropped one of those Zippleback gas bombs the twins are officially forbidden from recreating, not that that's ever stopped them.

Hatred, deep enough to drown in, bubbles from Grimmel like a froth, as he glances around for allies and finds no one.

His army is scattered under the claws of his own dragons, and kept back by Berk's warriors and their friends, who've been maneuvering in the background without Astrid having to command them. Stoick at work, with no more than a snap of fingers and a few short gestures, even while he only has eyes for Hiccup and Toothless, watching from that rooftop.

Even Dagur, listening in from afar with an expression of sick fascination – did he even know what sort of creature he was working with? – shows no real inclination to jump to Grimmel's rescue.

"All right, that's enough out of you," Astrid grimaces, pushing her captive back until he stumbles over a piece of his destroyed craft. While he flails for balance, she turns away, telling her riders, "Keep him here until I figure out what to do with him. Don't let that lot –"

She never finds out what the rest of that sentence was going to be.

A terrible scream, pain and rage and defiance all at once, slices through the air, a blade descending through the sky.

Somewhere, someone shouts, "Night Fury! _Get down!_"

All across Berk, people throw themselves towards the ground on instinct, or stumble back, or cover their heads with their hands and stare skyward.

A blur of white scales streaks across Astrid's vision, and one of the white Furies, diving out of the sky with snarling teeth bared, slams into Grimmel full-force and buries razor-sharp fangs in his gut.

It happens so fast. The white Fury shakes him like a hawk with a rat, blue eyes narrowed in rage and that terrible howl, muted against his body, keening from its – her? – throat. The hunter of Furies manages one aborted shriek as blood splashes and the white dragon sinks her jaws into him again, but no more.

Throwing Grimmel down, the little Fury tears into him, sawing her head back and forth whip-quick, until her jaws close straight through his chest.

Wailing, screaming, howling with all the fury she and those like her were named for, the little dragon ends Grimmel's pursuit of her kind, and all dragons, forever.

Like someone's snapped a piece of time out of the world, a wide circle has happened. No one wants to be close, but no one can look away from her as the white Fury tears Grimmel apart and shakes the pieces.

This beautiful little white dragon, covered in blood.

And what Astrid will remember, much later – in her dreams, when she tells the story again on winter nights when everyone is trembling for a fearful tale to set against the dark, when she's an old, old woman watching her own heir take Berk from her weary hands – is this:

Everyone looks at Hiccup and Toothless.

Viking of Berk or stranger from afar; Heather or Dagur; dragonrider or wolf warrior; riding dragon or wild white Fury – every eye turns to them.

They don't stop her, as the white dragon rips into what's left of Grimmel and wails. They don't look away. They don't even blink.

They sit above the bloodshed and they watch her, as she avenges whatever wrong Grimmel had done to her, as silent as shadows, as unmoved as stones.

* * *

The blood-spattered white dragon stomps hard on a piece of what had been Grimmel the Grisly with one last piercing wail, spits his blood into the puddle at her forepaws, and falls silent, staring at her paws and trembling.

An eerie silence has fallen over the battlefield, and no one seems in a hurry to break it. Possibly no one dares – there are more white Furies overhead. No one wants to be the first to start a fight again, not when the last person to stand out ended up as…_that_…

No one seems too eager to avenge Grimmel, either; Astrid can't be too surprised that no one really liked the guy.

_All right, Astrid. You've gotten your sign. Time to tell everyone what it means._

_Time to figure out what you want it to mean._

_Now, preferably._

Fighting to keep the flailing sense of time running out from her face, Astrid glances around. There are still soldiers on her island, far too many of them, and while she doesn't want her people and their allies massacred, she doesn't want them to kill everyone, either. She's got to give them a reason to _leave_, and to stay gone, and she has to do it now, while everyone's still breathless and shocked.

She finds herself staring at nothing, and then she blinks as thin air twists and fades, changing shape and color, becoming a little white Fury that darts away when it sees her looking at it.

They're invisible.

_I wish we could be invisible; I wish ships like those and men like these could never find us again. When Drago's men didn't know where we were, we were safe…_

_I need us to be invisible again, but how?_

And Astrid gets an idea.

A mad idea, a wild idea, but so was letting Stormfly out and standing in that dragon pit with her, trying to earn the trust of a dragon she'd left with scars years ago. So was climbing onto Stormfly's back at the invitation of a man more dragon than human. So was striding up to Drago Bludvist and telling him a brazen lie, daring him to buy it. So was reaching out to Heather and saying, "I know you're more than that."

The battle for Berk won't be won with fire from the sky, or with blood. Killing each other for this ground has never gotten any of them anywhere; only when they started talking to each other did anything change.

A trick, a trick they'll all be in on, a trick to reshape the world.

Astrid's danced oar-dances before, leaping from moving pole to moving pole, trusting her gut and the rhythm she can feel in her bones, knowing she'll fly if her feet are light and her instincts are right.

Just for this instant, no one wants to fight. Maybe if she's fast enough, loud enough, _bold _enough, and she sells it just right, this can all end here.

"Enough!" Astrid shouts in her very best chiefing voice, the one that cuts above the clamor of all of Berk packed into the Great Hall and arguing. "Isn't this enough?"

Her dragonriders, drawn together into a little clump just in case there might be _more _Furies, are staring at her, but so is everyone else across the battlefield her village has become. Good.

"Dagur!" Astrid turns to the exile Berserker chief, striding over to Heather and putting a hand on her back. _Here I am. Thank you._ "I want to bargain. No tricks this time." And she throws another gamble out there.

"Do you actually want to win, or do you just want me to lose?"

Dagur holds his sword a little tighter. Not a good start. "What's the difference?" he shouts, his face pale. His eyes keep darting from her to Heather to the bloody white Fury to Hiccup and Toothless watching from on high. Hopefully he'll think better of going after them again. But if she throws her knives just right, and the targets are all where she thinks they are, he'll never have the chance.

Astrid spreads her hands out wide. Her axe is still embedded in the wreckage of Grimmel's flight craft, and she's in no hurry to go get it, so she bargains without it in her hands after all.

"I want to give you everything you ever wanted. Interested? Tell them to stand down! Or should we just see who the next one to die will be?"

She can see Dagur thinking about it: Heather is standing right there, ready to defend Astrid, and if he's _still _underestimating women with axes, he's stupider than Astrid hopes. Quite a bit of his army is groaning in the dirt with stepped-on limbs and broken ribs, and several more are having a quiet vomit behind various houses. Even those in fighting-fit condition don't look too eager to get back into it…

"If this is a trick –" Dagur shouts back after a moment, and Astrid grins, rushing high like she can feel Stormfly's wings beating strongly around her, seeing the clouds stream past and the ground fall away like she never has to come down again. There's just a thread of a possibility here, a single gold strand in a tapestry, and if she walks it as straight as a roofbeam, her feet steady and the wind with her, then maybe, just _maybe…_

"That's the thing," Astrid says. "It is a trick. But it's not on you. It's a trick on the world."

Everyone gapes at her, but Astrid's running on ahead. She doesn't have time to take this past Stoick, or work it through with Heather, or check in with Gobber, or even hand it over to her dragonriders to see if it'll survive them chewing on it.

But Dagur's always wanted to be respected, and if Astrid starts treating him as an equal, someone to be negotiated with because the two of them just throwing armies at each other isn't going to work…maybe that'll soothe a bit of his pride long enough for her to get through to him.

And there's no question the two of them are the center of attention – well, except for Stoick, who has eyes only for Hiccup and Toothless, springing into the air and shepherding little white Furies and one bloodied one away from the rooftops and cliffs of Berk.

Astrid hopes they'll come back. She also hopes there'll still be a village for them to come back to, but she can only control one of those things, so she sets about making it happen.

Already, Dagur's standing a little taller, and Astrid finds herself doing the same. "Nobody's winning here," she leads off. "So, why don't we change the game?"

"Nuh uh," Dagur argues straightaway. "You said everything I want. I get my Berserkers?"

Astrid shakes her head. "No."

"No way!" a couple of Rebels shout, and Dagur glares around for them. Berk's Vikings close in around them, hiding them from view.

"This little thief in chains, then!" he demands, pointing at Heather.

"Also no."

"Definitely no," Heather agrees firmly.

Dagur's starting to lose the plot. "_You_ step down then, and that Fury in a muzzle, and that wild sorcerer boy to command him, and –"

"Oh, by all the gods, Dagur," Astrid says, rolling her eyes. "Think a little bigger, why don't you?"

Dagur buries one hand in his hair, pulling on it in that familiar, frustrated gesture, brandishing his sword at Astrid with the other. "I'm not hearing _anything _I want here, and you said _everything!_ So this is a trick, and I'm not playing, and –"

She can't let him think that way. "Look – listen to me for just one minute, all right?" she cries. "The world's moved on! Or at least, this corner of it has. And you can't keep doing this, Dagur. You're going to keep making things worse, and we're going to keep stopping you, and I don't want to do this anymore. Something has to change. So here's what you're going to do."

All right, so he's fuming too hard to get a word out. Whatever works.

"Go back to where these guys came from," Astrid orders, pointing at the nearest group of armored men. "Take them with you! And you're going to tell them a story."

Dagur blinks at her, face screwing up into an expression of utter confusion. Whatever he was expecting her to say, it wasn't that. "What?"

Astrid smiles, and lays out the trick to save them all. She hopes. "Whoever you meet, whoever demands to know what you're doing with this lot, tell them you took command. And then tell them you _won._" Now she's got everyone confused – even people staring after the vanishing Furies are listening like children eavesdropping on their parents, and she's even lost Heather – but the more she thinks about it, the more Astrid believes this is their best shot.

"Oh, tell them I screamed and cried before you killed me, if you want," she offers. "Tell them you burned Berk to the waterline. And then _you take us off the map._"

She spreads her arms out wide and grins like she's trying to sell them something. "You want to be a warrior the world fears, don't you? Great! I want that for you too, Dagur – I just want you to go and do it somewhere else. Look, you don't _want_ to be a tribal chief. You never have. You want to be a warlord – aren't you tired of trying to do it here? Take the army you've got and go tell the world that Berk is gone.

"And no one needs to look this way for a good long while."

Dagur lowers his sword a little way, but it's a start. "Why the hell should I go along with this?" he demands.

Astrid smiles all foxy. "Look what happened to the last guy who didn't."

She'd warned Grimmel about setting foot on Berk.

She lets Dagur think about what they _all _saw happen to Grimmel, just for a second, and follows that swipe with a stab. "Looks like you've been promoted," she dangles out there as bait for Dagur to follow. "Go show the world what a good old-fashioned Archipelago Viking can do."

_All the ships, Dagur. All the soldiers under your command. A chance to start over, far away from people who remember you as a kid and didn't like you then, either. And you get to say you won._

"You do this for us, Dagur, and you know what you'll be back here? You'll be a hero."

And _now _she's got his attention.

"You'll be _our _warrior, fighting for us in the world, keeping us all safe. Just don't tell anyone we're here. And if you do that…well, I think that's the sort of hero we'd have to sing songs and tell stories about! We'd never forget," she offers, and sees his eyes light up.

_Everything you want_, she said, and Dagur thought so small.

Her smile sprouts a few fangs, and Astrid turns her hands up in a shrug. "Of course, if you did this for us…if you took these fighters of yours and kept everyone away, because who cares about an empty stretch of ocean, after all, nothing but ashes after you burned it all? Then we won't ever have to tell anyone that the great warrior Dagur was actually fought to a standstill by a couple of girls."

"Yeah, and a flock of _Furies!_" Dagur objects, but at least it proves he's listening, and that's all Astrid wanted. "And those Deathgrippers of Grimmel's! And your entire _tribe!_"

Oh gods, she's going to have to deal with more…Deathgrippers? Lovely. Tomorrow. That's at the very least tomorrow, and she just has to keep running until she's gotten today under control. But all around her, two armies are listening, and there's hope in the eyes of the Vikings who are _tired_ of Dagur buzzing around like a wasp that won't stay swatted and the threat of Drago's army pointed at them.

And Drago's men? They came here for tame dragons, and what have they gotten out of it? An army of Vikings that don't stay beaten, and stampeding Deathgrippers, and Night Furies, even _ghost _Night Furies, a legendary hunter of dragons slain before their eyes, and far from the rich harvest of biddable dragons they were promised.

"Think about it, Dagur," Heather chimes in; oh, she's caught on _good_, and there's laughter in her eyes as she shakes her head at Astrid – _where did _this_ come from?_

_A man who thinks he's a dragon, Heather,_ Astrid can't answer right now – _and we all agree, and so it's true. And so we can be invisible, just like those little Furies – we just have to spread the word that we're not here._

Heather adds, "No one will ever ask you to name a goat again."

Dagur pulls a face that make him look very…human. Astrid's made that face a few times herself, but only where none of her people can see. "Oh my _gods_," he grits out, "is that useless old biddy still doing that?"

"Sounds like that is something you want, yeah? All you have to do," Astrid picks back up, "is change the rules. You know we can _both _get something we want, right?" She waves a finger back and forth between her and Heather, and Dagur. "You can win, and so can I. I get my island, my dragons, and my friends left in peace, and you get to be the warrior hero you've always wanted to be. How about it?"

And this is what Astrid has been training to do since Stoick sat down across from her at lunch that day – not just _fight _for her people, but _talk _to them. To listen to what they want, and to figure out what they really need, so that everyone thinks they've won, and no one stabs their neighbor with wool shears over yet another bucket that's rolled under their steps. To work with them, and to find a balance.

Even if the stakes are a little higher than her average Gripe Day. The cries of the wounded, the ruins of her people's homes, the breathless anxiety of her tribe and her allies watching her as she gambles for them all, the drying blood on blackened stones – everywhere she looks is a reminder.

"Just go, and tell everyone you meet there's no point coming this way anymore," Astrid urges Dagur. "You won, and there's no one left to fight, there aren't any dragons to steal. Oh – we'll need ours back, by the way. Not negotiable."

Somewhere, a bunch of teenagers yell and wave their fists in the air with Gustav leading the cheer.

"If _your _ships," and that is a possessive look creeping over Dagur's expression… "go back with empty holds, that just backs up the story you're all going to tell, right? We want everyone to think it's a giant waste of time to come this way ever again."

Astrid smiles. "Just how much do you want to be the hero, Dagur?"

And she's _got him_.

They keep on him for a bit, but she's got him.

"We've got a bunch of new statues to carve," Heather offers, which Astrid suspects is a lie – her Rebels would hate that. "We can't let Berk have the best lighthouses standing guard, after all…"

"I'd write it down, if you did," Fishlegs chimes in – Dagur can't stand him, but being written _down?_ In a _book?_ As a _hero? _Even if it's Fishlegs writing it?

Oh, no wonder she'd been thinking of Stoick: he's standing there. "It would be a noble thing," Stoick intones solemnly, without a trace of his usual disdain for Dagur's very existence. Maybe too solemnly, but Dagur doesn't do subtle. "To defend the entire Archipelago."

Honestly, if Astrid has to keep pitching this, she's going to give up and scream _yes, stupid, you do want to win and get an entire battle fleet for your trouble._

But just before she gets that desperate, Dagur gives in.

"All right!" he shouts, ramming his sword back into its sheath and throwing both hands into the air. "I'll do it! But I want songs, you hear? I want stories, and I want a ship named after me, a _good _ship, and _your _treacherous lot better never forget what I'm doing for them, got it? And I dunno how this lot are gonna take it."

"So don't ask them," Astrid says. Unless she's badly missed her shot, Drago's soldiers don't want to go home beaten a second time. They'll lie for their pride as much as Dagur will. "Go and command."

Dagur gives her a distinctly fishy look, but he stomps off to yell at his army, muttering. Something about _smug blonde know-it-all dragon-loving crazy weirdoes_, whoever they are.

"You are a crazy woman," Heather says when Dagur's too busy threatening to punch people to eavesdrop, and Astrid grins. "Absolutely, unbelievably – if this works…"

"It'll work," Stoick rumbles, and Astrid could butter bread with the pride in his voice. "Dagur gets what he wants, and Berk stays hidden."

Astrid can't resist the smirk, because Dagur hadn't noticed the loophole. "And I promised _nothing _about what we're going to do with that."

Berk can be an island safe for dragons again, and Heather got the idea right away, didn't she? That's Rebel Island where dragons will be able to live in peace with Vikings. That's two.

How many islands are out there? How many chiefs will listen?

If they're _careful_…

"So, uh," Ruffnut asks, creeping somewhat tentatively towards three chiefs at once. She eyes them suspiciously, as if one of them is bound to tell her off for something, and points at Astrid. "Heather's right. You are crazy. I _like_ it."

"So we vanish?" her brother completes her thought, popping up behind her.

Not all that far away, Dagur argues and yells and brandishes his sword at _his _army, giving them new orders that will take them far away and never bring them back.

"Yes," says Astrid, looking up into a sky empty of Furies, whether black or white – or is it? They turn invisible.

"We vanish."

Of course Dagur picks that moment to stomp back up to them and snarl, "All right, you've got a deal!" He folds his arms and fumes for a moment, probably trying to find another reason to be mad, and settles for pointing at Heather and demanding, "Who are you, anyway?"

Heather, in the company of her friends, grins. "I'm your big sister. Surprise!"

If there were any trees nearby, Dagur's scream of "WHAT?" would shake the leaves from them.

But the flight of Terrible Terrors, creeping out of hiding and startled into the air, will have to do.

* * *

It's not all sunny sailing from there.

Not everyone's ready, just like that, to go along with their war being called off with no real winner, just a draw they've all agreed to lie about. Berk's Vikings point to their ransacked village and their roasted sheep and their dead and howl for vengeance. Drago's former troops grumble at coming all this way for nothing to show for it and backing down before a ragtag lot of upstarts and barbarians. For a time, while each side bandages their wounded and retreats beyond a stone's throw of each other, it looks like the fighting might break out again over glares alone.

But with ridiculously overblown songs and the chance to be the hero of his own epic tale on the line, Dagur proves more than willing to hit people over the head and scream into the faces of anyone who argues, at least until his army gives up and goes along with him.

To be fair, that's been his excuse for leadership all along. And this time, to his very loud delight, it seems to work. Oh yeah, Dagur's going to fit right in.

Unless he gets himself killed in the first month, which is just as likely.

If Dagur happens to learn the hard way that he's not as tough as he thinks, she can live with that. Astrid's listened to the widows Dagur left in his wake, and watched Heather walk with the men – his own men – he'd crippled out of spite and blind rage. A sharp, hard dose of reality is more justice than she could ever deal out to Dagur the Deranged.

"But that's _mine!_" Gyda protests as the rest of Berk's people creep out of the Great Hall and start helping to put out fires.

"It's just a cook pot, Gyda," Astrid steers the half-blind old woman gently away. "We want them to tell people they raided us and there's nothing left. They would have taken the pieces. It's proof."

She'll trade a few trinkets and some supplies for their safety any day, although it burns, watching Drago's men roll barrels of salt fish and drag crates of seedcake down the switchback bridges to the harbor.

But the soldiers are leaving, hopefully forever. Or at least for a generation, long enough for the next chief of Berk to come up with something to set against that day well in advance. It's cheap at the price.

Not that it's perfect. There are families weeping over the bodies of their warriors, and half a dozen Vikings who'll be wearing one of Gobber's iron hands or feet for the rest of their lives, once they've rebuilt the forge. Gothi has set up a healer's pavilion in the cleared-out space between three scorched battle torches, their tops still smoldering. No one's been willing to put their hands up to doing that, although Astrid, like most of Berk, blames Fearsome. Those perfectly matched redhaired twins scuttle in all directions at the wizened little healer's gestured commands, dodging blows from her stick with giggles and intoning mystic nonsense over a captive audience of Berkians and Rebels, who sit on lumps of rubble with resigned expressions, waiting for their turn under Gothi's hands.

Astrid has funeral pyres to light, once it gets dark. She has toasts to raise to the dead, and stories of their heroes to tell, no matter how frustrating they were in life. Someone who dies for your mistakes – and Astrid can taste all her many mistakes in the back of her throat like bitter herbs and tears – is a hero.

But nothing's ever perfect, and Berk's people are good at putting out fires, anyway. They've had practice.

There are no songs about mopping up, but maybe there should be.

Standing on the headland over the ocean, not far from Stoick's house – Stoick himself is down in the village, either helping Gobber dig through the ashes of the forge or doing all the work while the smith complains – Astrid watches the ships out in the harbor. Bright and colorful specks, well-familiar, flutter and soar around them, diving down to the decks and poking into hatches before taking off again. Jagged red and green-gold and mottled brown chase each other through the rigging, their shouts carrying over the water, even through the surf at the base of the cliff and the creaking of vast sails as they belly out to tack into the wind.

At her back, Stormfly tears long gashes through the earth and warbles interest and concern. To Astrid, it sounds like _why aren't we out there?_

"Too much to do here," Astrid answers her reassuringly. "They just wanted to do one more check."

All afternoon, rowboats and the two little escort craft with the shallower keels have shuttled back and forth between Berk and the heavy, broad-beamed dragon-hauling ships, taking the soldiers away.

But Astrid's peculiar dragonriders have gotten there first. They've swaggered into holds and threatened to fill corridors with Zippleback gas and taken the truce and its terms out to the skeleton crew left on the ships. And they've stripped them down of captive dragons. Again. Maybe this time, the crews will take the hint.

Astrid always knows which ship they've hit lately, because every so often, dragons will spring into the air and scatter, racing back to Berk or vanishing along the coastline. She'll never know how many of them were shot out of the sky with dragonroot in the night, or how many were snared in Berk's forests.

The important thing is that they're out, free to return to the wild. Back to the peace they were promised, when Berk's Vikings promised to try if they did too.

"Think they'll find Hiccup and Toothless out there somewhere?"

Stormfly tips her head on one side, peering over Astrid's shoulder, and whistles curiously. She's good with names.

"Or maybe we will. Did you see those white Furies, girl? Could you even _imagine?_ I couldn't. What a sight!"

In all the chaos of Vikings settling with Drago's soldiers, with those ships still out there, she can't blame Night Fury and Wildfire for vanishing again, with all their wild friends close behind. Back into legend, for the soldiers sailing away. Back into the stories brave men tell in whispers, in locked rooms with strong walls, with weapons ready to hand, chills creeping down their spines to belie the fires burning bright before them, darkness prowling at their backs.

There are already so many rumors and speculations swirling among the Berkians and the Rebels. Astrid has personally been assured that the white Furies were the ghosts of all the Night Furies Grimmel had killed, called back out of the underworld by Hiccup and Toothless to take their revenge.

She'd listened patiently to this heap of rubbish, and said only, "Really, Eret?"

"Well, it _might_ be true, yeah?"

Astrid knows the dragons, not the demons, and she has faith that she'll see her strangest friends again.

Her strangest ally clomps up the path towards her, and Astrid turns to watch him as her riders careen by over her head, coming down to a landing the hard way. She keeps telling them that dragons know how to land, and that they shouldn't help, but they seem to be having fun. Stormfly shrieks dignified scorn at them as they step on each other's tails and yell, "All clear, Astrid!"

How right it is, to see dragons in the skies of Berk. _Can't wait to bring the rest home_, Astrid thinks, but does not say, because Dagur's in earshot now, and talking.

Surprise.

"How do you put _up _with that lot?" he demands.

Astrid shrugs one shoulder. "They grow on you. Got everyone sorted, then?"

"Yeah," Dagur says. "_My _ships are headed south. Alghult says there's a _castle!_ And some woman named Svanhild, thinks she's real good at screaming at people. Vaarnen's got silver on me screaming louder, want to bet?"

Now that she knows it's almost the last time, Astrid grants him a smile. It's a bit thin, but he won't notice. "Sure. Buy yourself a drink with my winnings. And…Dagur? No dragon army, all right? You've always said dragons are cheating. That's…you're right about that. They're not for war."

He huffs. "Huh. I don't need dragons to be awesome anyway."

"That's more like it."

Dagur scratches at the back of his neck, just slightly awkward. "And hey, since you care so much…not that I do, anyway…you know that lot were out there looking for dragons?"

"Yes, Dagur, I sent them out there." A small pit opens in Astrid's stomach, and Stormfly _chirr_s nervously over her. What now?

"So anyway…one of the ships left already, 'cause they were full up."

"Dammit!" Astrid spits, wanting to stomp her foot like a child. "I knew we were missing some! That Nightmare of Gustav's, and the blue Zippleback that follows the twins around –" She follows Dagur's skeptical gaze without having to look, then looks anyway; green Barf and Belch are playing tug-of-war with the opposing head's reins. "No. We have _more_ twins. Count yourself lucky."

She sighs. "Nothing's _ever _easy, is it? All right. We'll pick up our pieces here, and then these four and I will go after them. South, you said?"

"Yeah." Dagur sights on the sun, and points southeast. "They were headed that way."

Well, her dragonriders are faster than heavy-bellied dragon-hauling iron ships, so Astrid puts that to one side to boil over later. One last attack run, then. Snotlout will be so pleased.

"Thank you for telling me," Astrid says, and, on an impulse, reaches out a hand to Dagur. "I mean it. You didn't have to. And…thanks, for what you're doing for all of us."

Dagur stares at her like she's turned into a dragon herself, like her hand is a bowl of plum pudding – _where did this come from, and do I want it?_

But he clasps his hand around her forearm in a warrior's handshake, his palm against her wrist guards and muscles, her hand against his.

"Tell them a great story."

"Oh, you _bet!_" Dagur declares, and Astrid grins, because that's exactly what she's doing. Betting.

"And good luck," she adds.

"Ha!" Dagur bursts into one of his incredibly crazy laughs, and Astrid rolls her eyes while he's not looking. She's not going to miss that. Or him, really. "I don't need _luck!_" he shouts, as if daring the gods. "I'm Dagur the Deranged, commander of the baddest fleet the world is ever gonna see, and you people are gonna sing the _best _songs about me! Just you wait!"

* * *

"Our hero," Heather drawls once it's safe to come out from hiding, when Dagur's vaulted onto the last boat out from Berk's harbor with a completely needless running leap. He sticks the landing, though.

"Yeah, aren't you so proud?" Ruffnut pipes up. "Your brother's crazier than mine."

"No, he's not! What if we got a bigger shark? Or, or, a walrus! Let's go catch a walrus and ambush Snotlout."

"Oh, shut up," Heather sighs, not that the twins are listening anymore.

"Idiots, I'm standing right here! I can _hear_ you!"

"As the smartest person here, I judge that you should absolutely attack Snotlout with a walrus," Fishlegs eggs them on.

"Hey," Astrid says to her friend as Heather dodges around Stormfly with a pat, throws an arm around Astrid's shoulder, and helps her watch the last ships carry Dagur away to whatever adventures await him. _Somewhere else._

Dagur's going to save them all. Who knew?

"Here on Berk, we are all about the unlikely."

_There's you, and there's Stormfly, and there's Fishlegs and his Gronkles, Ruffnut and Tuffnut and Barf and Belch, who I see have tied their own heads together, and Snotlout and Fearsome haven't killed each other or anyone else yet…_

And down in the village, Stoick's voice echoes up loud and clear and lively, berating Gobber for skiving off all the cleanup duty, and even at this distance, Astrid thinks she can see his face, smudged with soot, turn up and away. Watching the sky again, but joyfully.

Somewhere off in the wilds, on Berk or across the sea, there's a Night Fury and a man who's a dragon, and Furies they'll have to tell all sorts of new stories about, and maybe one of the tales will be close to the truth. Eret will come up with a dozen, all different, before the next new moon.

Off on Rebel Island, there are people just like them, building new lives and getting used to the friendly dragons they're providing a haven to. Heather and her fighters will have to go back to them eventually, but for now…

For now, Astrid is surrounded by those she loves and those who'll bear her up in the days to come, knowing that soon she'll be able to bring the rest of her tribe home, never to be parted again.

Astrid, Chief of Berk, watches her people and her island pick themselves up one more time, and dreams of what it's going to be.

Even if her friends are arguing about where to find a walrus.

* * *

Tiirinkoski has spent years of his life on this ship, and he knows every plank and line of her. He can predict the weather from the pitch of the ropes as they hum, bleeding tension off the taut-bellied sails as they run before the wind. He can climb to the peak of the masts and the lookout posts there at night even with all the lanterns out. The _slap _of waves against the hull, helpless to turn the massive craft from her course, are as familiar as his own heartbeat. He can always tell the difference between the sound of his ship fully laden, and the hollow sound of her running empty; they're as different as a full belly and a hungry one.

It feels good to have his ship running full again, her holds bearing the cages they were built for. They're emptier than they would have been with Bludvist running the fleet, though, back in the high days of the warlord's endless campaign in full roar. They'd _chewed _through dragons, back then. Tiirinkoski hadn't minded; it kept his crew busy and his ship on the waves, himself at the helm, and they were just animals, after all. He'd thought no more of them than he would have of a cargo of sheep.

The sea is empty on all sides as he strides the length of his ship, leaving the helm to Rastus and ignoring the roars and snarls echoing up from the lower decks in favor of listening to the chatter of his crew telling each other lies about what they're going to do when they get back to the crossroad fortress with the first cargo of dragons all year. They'll fetch quite the price, at least until the rest of the fleet catches up, so better to get them in now.

Kustaw and Lauhan, scrubbing out barrels and stacking them by the prow to be filled again, laugh about taking Varkaus to a tavern they know, and the younger man loudly disbelieves everything they say. Sievari scrambles up a rope ladder to adjust a sail-line as the wind shifts, and their captain doesn't miss a step as the ship veers slightly. Logn stumbles out of one of the hatches complaining about dragons, and everyone mocks him for forgetting that dragons breathe _fire_, it's his own fault for going down there without protective gear.

The sounds of his ship in good order echo back from all points: jokes about the girlfriends his crew left to go hunting, and how much they're going to enjoy not having to share a bunk with their crewmates, and mocking thanks that soon they'll be able to find some better food. Captive dragons roar from underfoot, and the ocean surges against the hull.

Far from the madmen who seem to be running the world lately, at least until they get back to port. People who deal in dragons are weird. Except him, of course. He's just doing a job, and there's no point getting silly about it. Silly doesn't fix ships.

Everything back to normal.

He feels it when the ship sails into rougher waters, of course, but catches himself without even a stumble. There are crosscurrents everywhere, springing up when they're least expected; the only surprising thing here is that they're strong enough to move the ship, especially this far from a river-mouth or fjord. They haven't seen land since they left that Viking island, and the place was already starting to smoke. It's probably not there any longer, if the wolfheads have had their way.

"Put about," Tiirinkoski calls out, rumbling through his heavy brown beard. Söörmarku says it looks like he's stuck a wolverine to his face, but then first mates – and nephews – get to say things like that. Besides, it keeps his face warm. "Keep us on course."

"Trying, Captain!" Rastus calls down from the helm, and starts shouting at Kustaw and Hankuri to help with the sails.

And that should be it, except speaking of Söörmarku, his first mate says, "That's weird…"

Tiirinkoski can hear him, because abruptly, every dragon in the hold has gone silent at once.

The first mate is leaning over the starboard railing, peering down at the water like it's offended him. "Captain, look," he says, as if the captain isn't looking. "– it's running _with _us."

Along the side of the ship, dark waves in dark water, the ocean pours by their hull faster than they're moving, faster than the ocean all around. Small waves erupt from nowhere further out to sea, and then vanish, like there'd been something there once, and never again.

Sunlight glances off the water, but just for a moment, he's uncomfortably aware that the sea could be _bottomless_ out here, for all he knows. His ship is solid beneath his boots, but the water looks very deep.

Except a shudder grinds through the ship, a long slow _crunch _that paces relentlessly down her keel from prow to stern, and the entire ship shakes. Men and unsecured cargo crash to the deck, and Tiirinkoski feels the impact in his teeth, all the way down to the core of his bones.

Is there a sea-ridge out here? Some treacherous spire of rock, hidden by the sea, that his ship has swiped her side along? Every pinch of his flesh crawls, listening for the fatal _crack _of planks parting, the scream of iron crushed and rending, the thirsty _glug_ of the sea rushing in. Across the deck, everyone stands or crouches frozen, listening with him; if the ship goes down, they all die.

The holds just below his feet seem very silent, even through the metal reinforcing them.

And then the deck erupts into a panicked confusion of running around and shouting, his crew stampeding to the starboard railing to stare over the edge with the sick fascination of dead men, clinging tight to straps and ropes and each other just in case the ship lurches – as it does, just then, like it's struck another stone – because no one, _no one_, wants to get thrown in. Rastus swears at the helm and wrenches at it, but the ship grinds on with that terrible, _terrible _sound.

Despite the wind pushing the sails out full, she slows, like she's turned dead ahead into a current too powerful to fight.

And then, despite that wind, despite the sheer _weight _of a ship broad enough to carry an army and an attack wing of dragons into battle…

The ship stops, dead in the water.

It just…stops.

"What the…" the captain snarls, and then…

Just beneath the prow, the ocean surges, heaving, and something too big to be real splits the waves.

Dark grey spikes, like beams from the sun risen undead from its grave, fan out behind a face that rears up out of the ocean, a ship-killer iceberg carved into a long, flat maw above a heavy chin. Tusks longer than the foremast frame the ship's prow with casual threat, but not as casual as the _enormous _paw resting against the keel, just beneath the waves, holding the ship in place unmoving.

Silent with horror and recognition, Tiirinkoski imagines the creature – _Drago's Bewilderbeast, that's Bludvist's behemoth, they called him the Beast from the Sea but _that's _the real one!_ – standing on its hind legs on the sea floor to hold them back, like a man with a hand outstretched in a gesture even children know.

_Stop._

Seawater pours from it like rain, covering the ship and its crew and its dumbstruck captain in a light, salty mist that reeks of something strange and unearthly. The bottom of the ocean, the realm of the drowned and the damned? Its eyes are blue and bloodshot, its hide dark with ancient scars; rusted and broken chains utter muted _clanks_ as the creature rears up, looming over them like a god.

When it spreads its wings, the wounds torn through and healed open do _nothing _to lighten the shadow it casts.

The biggest dragon anyone has ever seen makes no sound – it has everyone's rapt and horrified attention. It does nothing, except stare them down with intent eyes in a face like mountains, and stop the ship cold.

_It vanished after Drago died, I saw it walk into the sea – _Tiirinkoski wants to scream, but his throat is locked tight in terror, and his legs are trembling beneath him. If his life depended on it – and it may do! – he could not move or give a single command. And _what _command?

Nothing can stop this thing! It's a ship-killer – it wouldn't even have to try!

And beneath his frozen feet, the captive dragons start roaring, louder than they ever have before, all their voices joined as one.

They stop all together.

They start again.

And the captain's heart turns to water as the Bewilderbeast _looks at him._

Dragons can't talk – dragons are _animals!_ – but this one is speaking as clearly as if that enormous mouth had opened and spoken words.

_Let them out. Or – _

The behemoth's mouth opens, but only to breathe a very soft gust over the rigging, and all that sea-mist turns to ice in an instant.

Tiirinkoski, who's just doing a job, gulps.

"Let them out," he says.

"Whhhhh…" his nephew stutters beside him.

"Dragons. Out." He considers. "Now."

There had always been rumors among the fleet that Drago Bludvist had something that gave him power over dragons, that let him put them in cages and control them with ease. Was this it? This iceberg that swims like a dragon, that went rogue after its master's death?

A man doing a job wants nothing to do, _nothing_, with something this powerful letting dragons _out._

"Now!" Tiirinkoski shouts, and his crewmen find their feet and run to comply.

And as his men throw open cage doors and dive behind hatches and gabble prayers in terrified whispers, not a single dragon flames at them, or slashes out in furious vengeance. The dragons take to their heels and bound through the corridors of the ship like they know the way, a cascading river of dragons not even jostling each other as they run.

Nadders and Nightmares and Zipplebacks and Gronkles and that one young Typhoomerang they caught sneaking around and nearly killed themselves catching – in moments, the beasts leap into the open air, spiraling like a colorful, shrieking waterspout. Freed dragons swoop around the Bewilderbeast's tusks and dive over its ruff and hover between its eyes, crying out to it in what almost sounds like gratitude, flecks of color against its grey scales like dirty snow. They fill the air with fire and screams and tumbling acrobatics, dancing through the sky like fish scattering around a spear that's missed its strike.

The Bewilderbeast turns its eyes up to watch them, and it's all the captain can do not to sink to his knees and throw his beard over his face and _hide_.

And when the little dragons scatter, flitting away into the sky, the rogue Bewilderbeast sinks back into the ocean. Almost like it was never there –

– except for the final dismissive _flip _of its tail, which soaks everyone on deck so thoroughly, the creature _had _to have done it on purpose.

Above, the sails flap very loudly in the absolute silence of no dragons anywhere, and an entire crew of sailors wondering if they dare to breathe. The ocean all around them is smooth and serene, glimmering with afternoon sunlight, completely empty.

Everyone has the same thought all at once – _are we sure?_ – and half the crew screams and runs for the masts, climbing to get as far away from the ocean as they can, because that creature could be right under them, and they'd _never know!_

It could _always _be there, and they'd never see it coming, and they'd never be able to stop it. No one could.

"You know what?" Tiirinkoski says to his first mate as Söörmarku cowers beside him, clinging to his belt like the boy's a child again. "Chickens."

"Whhhhh…?"

"I hear chickens are nice. They don't breathe fire and they don't get very big, and you get to eat them if they get ideas. Let's go find your mother, never talk about this again, and raise chickens. I'm out. How about you, kid?"

"Chickens?"

"Maybe somewhere dry." They'll have to get the crew out of the rigging first, although, while they're up there, maybe they can trim the sails to go very, very fast.

"Yeah," Söörmarku says, eyes wide. "I'm out. Chickens sound good."

* * *

The last black ship vanishes from the ocean, leaving behind only the dark and trackless waters of the northern sea.

Probably empty.

Probably.

* * *

_Maybe the world isn't ready for us, but this is Berk, and this is home, for all of us. And here on Berk, we are getting started._

_And that's the important thing. To start. To keep going, even if you know you won't see the end. To try something new when the old ways aren't working anymore, and to persist._

_The world doesn't change for the better when you sit back and wait for someone else to do it for you. _You _make a better world, or no one will._

_I won't see the day when all dragons and all humans will live together in peace, but I've seen the start._

_The rest is up to you, and to everyone who comes after you. Keep them coming._

_It's work._

_But it's worth it._

[Believed to be a message from Chief Astrid of Berk to her successors, written on the first page of the revised _Book of Dragons._]

* * *

_To be concluded with an epilogue._


	21. Chapter 21

_**Freefall, **_**Part Twenty-One**

Edge can still taste blood.

It lies on her tongue very sharp, as heavy as a shadow, bitter and bright. Close by, some of her flock-mates play in a waterfall pool of clear, sweet water, pouncing at the fish scattering away from their paws and nipping at the little plants that sway beneath the sunlit surface. They cry out to each other in _amazement _for this green world, so different from the endless ocean they saw before, but Edge makes no effort to rise from her resting place in the grass.

She can roll in it, if she wishes to. Grass is hers to lie in, if she wants to. There is no grass in her caves, and she had thought never to see it again. She can show her belly to the warmth of the sunlight without surrender. The Creature will not pounce into her and tear. The Creature will never hurt her again. She knows this for _sure._

Edge rolls, slow and pleased and scornful, sighing the tickling blades of grass away from her nose.

The wide little ravine, deep in the forest, swarms with excited dragons and exhausted ones. Her flock-mates shriek and dance and spin, their cries echoing off the sheer walls of the surrounding cliffs. These stones do not glow. Instead, they are covered in many shades of green, from the grey-green of lichens and mosses to the rich dark of strong-smelling pine needles to the rippling golden-green of Edge's shallow lake of grass. Some of her flock-mates play at mimicking the new shades, flaring delighted colors across their scales and fading into the tumbledown stone.

From the forest above, a very tall tree reaches down towards the ground of the pit and rears up high above, making a maze of exposed roots for Barely Traces and Loud She to scramble among, whistling together. _Look look this here us here look what this? curious wondering not-sure interested you see? you see? look-at-me yes us good bold fast-fast-fast amazement here look! _

Follows Along curls himself into a hollow the roots make and rests his jaw on one of them, watching his mate play as his eyes flicker half-shut. The grey of _tired_ dapples shadows across his sides, fighting the sunlight turning his tinted scales richer.

Across the sandy earth of the hollow, her flock-mates drowse, sprawled out fearlessly. Many of them have put their backs to stones for the comfort of it, to feel a little like home, but their paws and wingtips twitch as if flying even in brief dreams. They sleep only in snatches. There is too much exploring to do, and too much of an adventure to wonder over!

With her head on her stained paws again, every pounding beat of Edge's heart against the ground is a triumphant pawstep away from the Creature. It will never, _never_ catch her again. Stone cliffs rear high above her as grass waves around her eyes, but Edge is floating, high in the endless sky without even wingbeats to bear her up.

She is _free._

Never again heavy vines cold around her paws and her wings. Never again a thing to hold her jaw shut and her fires within her belly. Never again dreams pulled over her head and fish forced down her throat. Never again an intruding, unwanted paw tracing along her lines and a mocking voice, light and hungry, gloating over her as she struggles and cries. All these things are gone as surely as if she had burnt a not-to-eat mushroom to ashes, smearing its dust into the stone.

With a very great sigh, blowing all those ashes away, Edge listens to the sounds of her flock-mates meeting the outside world, shuttering her eyes at the sight of Tumble and Disregard, who sit staring, awestruck by the blue sky above. Little wisps of color flow across their scales, _surprise _and _surprise _and _surprise _again for every cloud and darting bird and floating leaf. Walks Dark stands with all his paws in the pool of fresh water without even a trace of salt, gulping down the sweetness and bugling _delight _into bubbles.

Caught An Octopus and Liar Lure flutter around the small waterfall, playing at _out_ and peering over the lip of the cliff face, staring into the green darkness of the forest beyond. There is even _more _world out there! Both dragons shudder with _interest, _but together, they turn and dive back down again, racing to tell their flock-mates, _c'mon, c'mon, _and urging them to come see too, there is another waterfall to climb!

_This? _Swimmer wonders, and Edge opens one eye to see her pawing at the waving grass, _uncertainty _flaring across her chest. She looks to Edge, tilting her head _this good?_

Edge burrows deeper into the grass, spreading out her wings under the sun. _Good good good,_ Edge answers with a lazy wave of her tail.

Swimmer hesitates, and takes a cautious step into the grass, wary of undercurrents to sweep her away into the drowning dark. Edge had been sure that there must be cave-darkness _somewhere_, in this very bright world, and she had whimpered in fear when inescapable darkness found _her._ All that first night, she had trembled with horror, cringing low with her wings wrapped tight around her, wailing _abandonment _to the little glows in a roof too high to touch and the cold white light far above. It had looked just like a cave-mouth from below, too far to climb to, too narrow to let her fly out.

If the sun had not come back, Edge would have turned around and flown straight home, and it had taken all her terrified courage to face another night. But she had faced it like an enemy with her fangs bared, stepping through it like she would a cavern where she is not welcome. Now she smirks to herself, wondering how her flock-mates will react when they, too, meet the night.

Swimmer shrieks a tiny _startled_ sound as the grass tickles her scales, but she wades in deeper with her ear-flaps tilting up _confidence_, and yowls _brave _before hurling herself into the grass in a thrashing wild roll. All her paws tear at the untouchable sky as she wriggles, chirruping _delight _for the touch of it.

Flitabout Friend and Ripple Shades and Ambush follow her in, and Edge watches them _amusement _as they find that grass can be a toy and a nest and full of interesting smells. They also discover that grass sometimes hides little jumping bugs. Swimmer and Ambush and Ripple Shades scatter screaming with excitement, leaving Flitabout Friend to spring at the jumping bugs, snapping uselessly at the air with her tail waving _laughter._

Edge breathes in the scent of a world without the Creature, and feels the sun come up in her chest, bringing back all the colors and burning down the long shadow of her captivity. She knows as well as any dragon that dead is _dead_, and dead does not come back, and so she is safe from the Creature forevermore. _Now _she can run and fly and explore this world, and her flock-mates too, if they wish to.

She knows there are other dangers in this world. Marvel and Magpie warned them all, and she remembers those threats like dreams half-forgotten.

Well, she will bite those dangers too, if she needs to.

_Look!_ Shoves Hard whistles through the broken, jagged stick in his jaws, dragging it over to her. Edge blinks at it, and him, in puzzlement as he drops it before her with a growl. _This you this you see? danger-caution? Fierce? I growl bite bite this look! yes?_

She chirrups _confusion_. _No-threat_, she looks away with a yawn, flowing to her paws to lean on a piece of the stick with all her weight. It snaps, and Shoves Hard jumps, fading to match grass and earth and stone before all his scales wash white again, reappearing with a tongue-lolling grin.

He purrs _reassured,_ and dances backwards, dropping into a pounce and batting at the stick. _You play?_ he invites her, and Edge stares at him in silent shock. Never before has Shoves Hard so much as _looked _at her, except to push her away. He has no markings, but he is bigger than she.

Shoves Hard glances past the stick to Edge's bloodstained paws, and his eyes go wide. His pounce becomes a crouch, his chirrup of _invitation_ a low cry of _realization_. _You you that pounce you good fierce! pouncing-game this yes you-win!_

He snatches up his stick and races away, and Edge watches in confusion as he swoops into the air, drops the stick to the ground, and pounces on it again from above, shaking it in his jaws.

_Strange_, Edge bristles, pawing at the grass. And when she pads to the little lake to drink deeply, no one stands in her way, even by pretend-accident. Dragons who would have pushed her into the water and laughed, back home, move aside and make a place for her where the water runs clear. They look up, and they see her.

She watches uncertainly out of the side of her eyes as Tumble creeps towards her, sidling pawsteps dragging scars through the sandy ground. Tentatively, while all the rest of her strains away _no no fear no no daring-maybe trying no_, the other white dragon stretches out her nose and touches it to a spot of dried blood, still splattered dark across Edge's scales. Too surprised to spring away, Edge watches as Tumble trembles all over, her tail-fins spreading wide and her ear-flaps standing out in _alarm_. Her breath comes short and shuddering. _Wonder _and _horror _and _fear _cascade across her sides in vibrant colors.

Tumble springs away a heartbeat later, grunting a deep, _proud _noise to herself, as if she has done something very brave. But she crouches _respect _very low to Edge as well, and runs away in a quick snap of fluttering wings and waving tail and flailing paws.

They are…

Her flock is _proud _of her?

Edge stands baffled, her pawprints sinking deeper into the silty shore while her flock-mates play and explore, chirruping _curiosity _and _wonder_. A singing bird soars out of the tree cover and over the little ravine, and many blue eyes snap around to follow it, bodies trembling with _fascination _and an instinctive chattering chorus of _want want want _jittering from pale throats.

The bird dives away and vanishes before any dragon can chase it, but Liar Lure bounds from stone to stone, flicking her tail as she scampers up and down the tiny path hidden in the cliff face, trying to imitate its sounds in chirrups and cries.

Edge watches Liar Lure call for the bird until the white dragon, a single stripe wavering down her hindleg, flies just beneath a dark stone. Then she must lower her eyes again, barely able to look at them.

That is not a stone.

That is Marvel and Magpie, standing guard over them all at the edge of the ravine.

Their Alphas led this flock here as if they had been here before, and perhaps they have. Edge knows now that they have been _many _places, more than her world could ever hold, and that they long always to go further. The two black dragons had landed here very softly and prowled around into all the corners flicker-quick, almost before anyone else could land behind them, patrolling for lurking dangers and finding none.

_Safe here_, Magpie had chirped, but still they watch, listening to the forest like mothers while their flock plays like hatchlings.

But even as she cringes, Edge purrs with pride and the joy of knowing she had been right. She had known! She had brought Marvel to the glowing caverns _knowing _he could lead them better, that he could make things different, that it was right for a true-black dragon to lead them again. He has – _they have _– done so much more than Edge could have ever imagined. She wished only for them to move a few stones, and perhaps let her climb up those stones beside them, and instead they broke open her sky.

Her world will be different _forever_.

As she watches, shyly, unsure of where she stands, Marvel rises to all his paws and dives into the little ravine with a gentle glide. Magpie slips from his shoulders as they land, and the pair of them curl up together. The little dragon nestles into Marvel's forepaws, and Marvel hides his face in his partner's belly, and they breathe into each other in silence.

Perhaps they sleep. Certainly others are sleeping, sunbeams licking warm across their scales, learning to wake a bit and follow the sun as it pours slowly across the ground.

When Edge had first seen Marvel, she had been struck still with wonder – everything about him had said _power _to her. Even if she had not lain trapped and bound and frightened, still she would have been overawed by a dragon with _all _the markings that, in her world, meant _authority_.

But she had not understood Magpie at all.

Eventually, she had come to think of him as a runt, like one of her flock-mates born too small and slightly wrong. Sometimes there are hatchlings who struggle from their shells mixed-up or wounded in the egg, so they do not match their mothers. But all hatchlings are cared for, and to Edge, Magpie had seemed like a runt grown – one loved deeply, but still needing care.

And as they flew beside her, letting her lead them home, she had puzzled over the mismatched pair of them until she could fit them into her world. Surely, she had decided, they must have hatched together – _two _eggs laid and hatched in a clutch are rarer than runts, but sometimes it happens, and then the mother who laid them gloats very proud. And it was good that Marvel loved his clutch-mate still, protecting him from dangers and carrying him on his back so Magpie could fly too. Edge had been charmed even more for that: if her bold maybe-Alpha was so gentle to a dragon born wrong, surely Marvel would look kindly on _her_, even though she was only the dragon On the Edge of Things.

And in the caves she'd believed to be the real world, there were no dangers, no Creatures. There were only the petty resentments of her flock-mates, and _no one _would argue with an Alpha like Marvel. No one would snarl at his clutch-mate, or push Magpie from a stone, with Marvel's protection over him.

Maybe no one would push _her _aside, either, if she had such an Alpha to favor her.

How could she have known what they truly were? She knew only her world, and there was no one there like them.

She watches them settle together, a single self, and wonders how she could have ever imagined there was room for her.

Edge lowers her head, wanting to whine as her ear-flaps go down, but as she sinks, she feels the _pride _of her flock-mates lift her up again. She has been hunting for their good regard all her life, and it is too precious to let fall from her jaws no matter how much the rotten fish in her belly flops to be free. She will not let them see her shame.

She has made a _very great _mistake in her desperation, but had she not flown beside them when they asked? She made a danger go away! Edge licks briefly at her chest and spits at the taste of blood, fresh and new on her washed-clean tongue.

But what has she done?

She brought Marvel and Magpie to her nest, and she tried to keep Marvel for her own, and she is _sorry_, she will crawl on her belly forever and fly against all the foes they set her to, if they will only forgive her for that. She had only not wanted him to leave her.

She has been judged unworthy by her flock-mates all her life. If even _Marvel_, who had seemed like all her dreams come to life, who was _better _than them, abandoned her, what hope was there? She had panicked, desperate and afraid.

And despite that failure, as _wrong _as it would have been had she succeeded, they are bound to the glowing caverns of her home more firmly than she could have ever trapped them.

She had felt what they were along with everyone else, when Magpie roared and Marvel answered like a perfect echo, and the two of them shook the world to its foundations. In that moment, all that they were had poured through their flock with a single voice. To Edge, they had tasted almost the same, as one part of a fish tastes not exactly like another part, but it is all the same fish.

And they had tasted like the sky.

Edge has never thought of her caves as small – those caves were the only world she had. But now she has been swept up in the thoughts of her wanderer Alphas, and seen them fly like they would never have to land again. She learned that there are so many kinds of world out there!

And yet that does not scare her. Not anymore.

Something brushes at the fringes of her awareness, as light as a shadow, and Edge snaps her head up alertly, baring her fangs and turning to snap at the air over her shoulders, where –

Nothing there.

Shaken from her brooding, Edge snaps at the empty air again, and again, pretending to chase a jumping bug that pesters. She swallows her whimpers and turns away from the black dragons drowsing tangled together, inseparable halves.

_Uncertain_, Flitabout Naps yips to her, pawing at Edge's tail when she returns from peering curiously into the forest. Edge has not seen this forest before; all forests are different. She knows this.

_Here? here we now yes good here yes where? where? this yes sure uncertain-though._ Flitabout Naps flickers _questioning _across her flanks and _doubt _down her spine.

At her side, Disregard rumbles _worry_, nosing at the ground where a new-hatched little dragon would be. _Mine_, he worries for his hatchling, left behind safe in her hatching-nest with her mother. He glances _where?_ into the depths of this new world, _anxiety _crackling through his body that he cannot find her from here.

Edge tips her head to one side, thinking and remembering. _There_, she tells him, flicking her nose in the way she thinks home is, if he flew without the wind turning him aside. Before, she was lost – it is much better to fly on her own wings than to be carried, trapped and dreaming in the confines of a ship. Never again.

But what now? she wonders with Disregard, who sees her now. They have followed Marvel and Magpie _out _and into battle, and won a race longer than the whole world from end to end, but Edge wonders about tomorrow. Will they fly further _out _and never return to the caves? Will they vanish forever, like those few who disappeared without an echo, into the dark of the void or into the light of the sun? Will they go home, and encourage others to go _out _if they wish to?

And her flock-mates are wondering, too. The ravine that echoed with delighted shrieks now hums with inquisitive noises, soft but persistent. Where white dragons slept and played, now only black dragons curl up with their heads together, while their flock waits for them.

They are not sleeping, Edge realizes; she can still only look at them in glances. Magpie crouches in Marvel's forepaws, their heads resting against each other as if they whispered together, but she can hear nothing.

_You? _Barely Traces nudges her, and glances towards their Alphas. _You go you say yes you please you? Us wondering all yes._

_You, _Loud She agrees, quiet for once, and Ripple Shades whistles soft _agreement_. _You?_

Edge looks askance at all of them, gathered around her – no, no they are _not_, they are gathered _behind_ her, urging her towards Marvel and Magpie. Even those ranged out further, perched on the rocks and little ledges of the cliffs, are looking down at her.

_Don't-understand_, Edge signals back to them all. _Me?_

_You fierce yes you them you them like-you them yes certain-sure,_ Walks Dark says with a stubborn grunt. _You go you say!_

They are all wondering, the flock signals in glances and gestures and chirps and colors, and _she _should go and ask.

_No,_ Edge refuses, _misery _coiling in her chest like smoke. Her heart-fires ebb low at the thought. They may have favored her once, but after what she did to Marvel, how can they still?

But when they rose and roared and reached out to the flock, she had been included, she remembers, nosing through shreds for hope. She had shared her memories of the outside world with them, and they had accepted – the flock had seen _her _memories, too, in that moment.

Would they have done that, if they hated her?

And when they flew far and fast with the Creature screaming in its flying cage behind them, she flew alongside them and they let her. They fought beside her in the sky…

_You fierce!_ Follows Along agrees, crowding her towards their Alphas. _You go!_

Edge trails her tail, flickering with sickly shades of _reluctance_, behind her, scratching a long line through the flurry of pawprints danced across the silty earth. But she goes.

Soft sounds hum between Marvel and Magpie as she approaches, complex melodies as layered as a slice of striped rock with crystals hidden in it and glowing colors sleeping deep within. She could never understand them all, but those sounds are not for her. Her Alphas talk to each other the way her nose talks to her belly.

And yet, some instinct scratches at her, some signal she has come to recognize as she flew beside them under the sky and padded in their pawsteps across the glowing caves, hungering over Marvel and wondering over Magpie, guiding them towards what she wanted only to find they were never hers to command.

There is something here she has not understood.

With her flock-mates scattered across the ravine, watching her from stones half-in the little lake and ledges across the sheer walls and the tangled labyrinth of tree roots, Edge whistles for attention, low and pleading.

Marvel and Magpie turn to her, and all Edge can do is stare, overwhelmed with longing. From here, they look so different. Marvel seems like everything her world's Alpha should be and more, and Magpie like a runt born misshapen, the dragon's fire inside heedless of the body that carries it. And yet their eyes are the same, the way they move together the coordination of a single self, and together they contain a power that changes worlds.

Edge crouches low, _submission_, and even as her belly scrapes the sand, she _feels _them laugh inside her thoughts.

Her head snaps up, her eyes going wide in hurt and outrage, and Marvel moves in a pounce as quick as water, as fast as falling.

He slides the curve of his skull beneath her jaw, and Edge freezes in an instant of horror, sure he means to tear out her throat in vengeance. But Marvel only raises his head, pushing hers up.

Claws tap between her forelegs, against her belly, and Edge rises on instinct, away from Magpie darting beside her, urging her _up, up!_

And as she rears, Marvel steps back again to leave her standing on her own. Magpie returns to his side, flicker-quick, with that ungainly grace of his.

And together, they bow before her.

_**Her!**_ Marvel and Magpie declare to all the flock, as final as fangs through a fish's spine.

_Power_ washes out over Edge as she reels, baffled and disbelieving, under the wondering eyes of those who dared to race in the sun and who followed her when she led them through the sky.

Edge's heart beats once.

She feels Marvel twine around her on one side; she can see him clearly, crouched before her, but he stands at her side. On her other side, she senses Magpie just the same, every line and shadow matching Marvel's: one dragon, one soul, both doubled and united. They breathe over her with slinking satisfaction, amusement that smiles with its teeth showing.

She wanted the power to change where she stood in her world. She wanted to stand by the Alpha's side, protected in his shadow.

Well, she can have it, then. They will not fight this battle for her, but they will give her the power to fight it herself.

If this world _does not scare her_ – and she cries out _indignation_, knowing they had been listening – then _she _should lead her flock into it. They are strangers – they are always strangers, though they can be friendly ones – but she has always been part of the flock within the hidden caverns. Her caves could never be their only home, and an Alpha's loyalty cannot be divided.

_No!_ she objects, for an instant feeling what they feel, sharing what they share, knowing what they know, and hearing their thoughts as clearly as her own. She cannot! She will _never _be accepted as they were – they are everything their Alphas should be –

And she senses Magpie laugh, feels him scenting through her thoughts of him, _runt _like a dismissive paw, even as she feels him tremble under the thudding pain of wielding a power that burns him.

– but she has no marks _at all! _She is small and blank-white and she is _only _the dragon always on the edge of things, and she –

_Brave_, Marvel – or Magpie – sends to her, pushing back her own memory of creeping out into the gullet of the waterfall, staring up into the light and realizing there was _more_. She chose to go and see, when everything she knew said there was no more world beyond the caves.

_Fierce_, Magpie – or Marvel – remembers for her, and Edge sees herself fighting against the Creature, the Starving Creature, in the forest, writhing loose from her bonds as Magpie clawed them away and blazing at her tormentor with her first free breath.

They give her back her own apologies when she learned she was wrong about Magpie, and her willingness to look past the strangeness and horror of the dead thing they carried with them, even to offer her own nest as a refuge. They give her the days she spent at their side, guiding them through her world, and snort at her confession that she was guarding them against other she-dragons who might try to steal them away.

They show her the moment _she_, of every dragon who had ventured out into the cave before the waterfall pit, stepped forward to defend her home, even as she feared to face the Alphas she had wronged.

And she cries over markings?

Marvel and Magpie show her herself as she looks now. She has made her own markings with her enemy's blood, splattered and dried across her face and her forehead, poured down her throat and chest, splashed up her legs and sprinkled down her sides.

Alphas, the black dragons of her nest's dreams promise, are made from what they do.

She asks them _what now?_

_What now_ is up to her.

Edge's heart beats again.

_**Believe**_, say Marvel and Magpie to all the flock, and Edge feels that connection slam down as they _choose _to give up the Alpha's power. They do not know if it can be done, but they have decided it can be.

And so, they do it.

But she –

As her flock-mates – as _her flock _– wail for the Alphas who have left them and reach for the Alpha who remains, Edge can feel them _all._

In an instant, as new caverns in her mind break open under the power poured out upon her, like a deluge that crumbles stone, she knows them. She could find them all with her eyes closed and her breath held and her ear-flaps down, even if they lurked faded and quiet.

And they are –

They are _just like her!_

Inside, they are _all_ doubts and fears and scrambling, just as she is. Each one of them is pushing for their place in the world, wondering if they fit and hiding that they do not. Each of them cowers _ashamed_ that they are not enough. Each of them paws at their flock-mates in the hopes that they are welcome. Each of them fears the _cold _that means the emptiness beyond the flock and shoulders that turn away. Each of them wants only to belong.

_Me me me me me me me_, cry the hearts of all the little flock.

Edge, who has always believed that she was lesser, for longing when all her flock-mates seemed to _have_, realizes that there has never been anything wrong with her. It hurts like a snapped bone. It burns like triumphant fire.

But she knows the taste of their thoughts, because they are hers.

Her flock has never welcomed her. But she flew above the world and saw the sun; she _dared._ She returned, but she returned transformed, to see what she had always known with new eyes.

She no longer needs them to welcome her into their world.

_**Acceptance**_, Edge breathes over their thoughts, and she welcomes them into hers.

Just the ones here, who know her. These dragons followed her between worlds and learned to trust her; they saw her fly and fight and take the lead. But she can feel them like hatchlings curled at her side, new and strange-familiar and alarming and _important_. She can feel their breaths against her scales and a weight that cannot keep her down, but that she must tread very carefully around – they are hers, but never to _hurt!_

But when they turn to her, pushed by the last command of their former Alphas…

…it does not feel wrong to have them there.

Alone in the center of things as Marvel and Magpie step back, Edge looks up to find the dragons she knows by the taste of their secret thoughts watching her, eyes wide. Their world has been turned upside down and shaken, and _everything _is new and different now.

Edge…knows how to do that.

The white dragon On the Edge of Things trembles under the weight of those lives and her world within the caves, but she digs her paws into the ground of the world above, and she stands tall.

What else can she do?

And she feels her flock wonder, as they had asked her, as she had asked, _what now?_

Now? Now there is a world without limits to see and another world to protect as a haven and her home. There is a flock to upend, and beliefs that have been strong stone underfoot to defy – but stone can be broken! – and probably fights to win.

Oh, Patch will be _furious_ to see _her _stand as Alpha, and she will knock him back so hard if he tries anything! But _only _if he tries, Edge amends quickly, just in case Marvel and Magpie can still hear her. Somewhere in the back of her mind are their memories of living under the rule of a good Alpha, a proper Alpha who rules through love and wisdom, not spite and claws turned in to tear. They have given her a path to walk, if she chooses to follow it.

There are dragons still in the glowing caves who need to be reassured that going _out _does not mean vanishing forever, and this flock to get through the frightening darkness of the first night above ground. There is the larger flock waiting for their Alpha to return, even if she is not the Alpha they will be expecting.

And if she loses one of those fights, and she is overthrown?

Well, she has all the sky to explore, after all.

And maybe Marvel and Magpie – black dragons crouched together as they should be, leaning into each other, and watching her with confidence she _wants _to deserve, even if she also wants to cuff them for thinking that they are _very _funny – will meet her there.

_What now?_ Edge's flock begs of her, a defiant and daring array of white scales and blue eyes, scattered across the ground and the cliff walls of a ravine where worlds change.

Edge sets her shoulders, and raises her head, and makes her choice.

* * *

They fly on, alone-together in the sky.

Toothless spreads his wings into the wind, luxuriating in the sensation of a sky he does not have to share. Ever since they flew outward from their icebound nest, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have flown with others nearby. He carried the sorrowful shadow of the Lost One on his back, and then they flew with Shiver at their side, running from the Starving Man and to a safe place half-promised, barely imagined. And in that hidden nest, there were always other dragons, peering around crags and down from stone-teeth and out of the shadows of tall-branching mushrooms at the strangers padding invited and curious through their world.

When they flew again through the open sky, they did so with their flock, wings beating furiously at their sides and frantic thoughts buzzing within their skulls. The weight of those lives had pressed down on both halves of them, black dragon and dragon-feral flying as one.

Free from any of those things, with only his other half on his shoulders sighing into the familiar scents of the tumbling sky, Toothless flies very lightly indeed. He leans into a current in the air that froths like little waves, feeling tiny gusts burst against his chest. They hold him back not at all. His world is as it should be.

He has his Hiccup-_beloved _with him, the sun and the sky and the sea, the scent of home in his nose, and the knowing of it in the center of his skull.

As the wind ruffles around them, Hiccup settles more closely into the back of Toothless' neck, hiding warmth between their bodies like a toy to be guarded and shared. The cold breath of ice rolls over Hiccup's back and trails its claws down Toothless' spine, but they have both lived under its touch all their lives. Toothless purrs _love-you _at the touch of his beloved-self's breath against his scales, and rumbles _joy _at Hiccup's _chirr_ing cry of _love-you!_ in return.

Together, they roam the world, and together, they come home again.

Toothless is not sorry to set his tail to the Island of Dragons and Strange _Pfikingr_, not with those ships lurking there. He and his Hiccup-_love _had left Shiver and her flock to rest in the grass of the ravine, all the many white dragons Like Them crowding around their new Alpha and touching their noses against her scales in wonder. The dragon-pair know Shiver well enough now to see her struggle not to jump at every tap, and had watched with slow blinks of _pride_ as she settled beneath them.

And then _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ had taken to the sky, soaring low and wary across the treetops and dancing as close as a shadow to the flanks of the cliffs over the human nest. There, they had watched from above to be sure as the familiar, hateful ships sidled away. They are not like dragons _at all at all at all, _those ships, but they had moved like a dragon retreating, taking cautious steps backwards and wary of a blow to speed them on their way.

Toothless had listened to the calling of the dragons who live among humans, ear-flaps twitching, and Hiccup had spotted dragons fleeing after those ships had coughed them back up out of their bellies, until the island whispered with dragons sounds once more. And with their hearts at ease again, they had slipped away.

Now the sky smells of ice and the shimmering sea below his wings is familiar, and the sprawled-out points of stone that jut out of the water are places Toothless' paws know. Those stones are to land on only in moments, to catch his breath from a very quick chase or hide from their flock-mates under an overhang of fragile ice. Many pretty hiding corners have been smashed to snowstorms by the diving paws of a pursuer, howling glee or rage to find the dragon-pair again and reclaim whatever plaything they have stolen.

He knows that one day soon they will be restless again, but for now, Toothless can hear the cries of their flock-mates far ahead. He swerves from the kicking wind, furling his wings into an easy glide, descending towards the skies where dragons play.

A drift of grey-white cloud rolls over them, and Hiccup squawks _indignation,_ muttering complaints of _wet this wet cold not-like wet-always you-know why this why you-you-you!_

But as Toothless gurgles _laughter _back at him, chortling over the good joke and Hiccup's halfhearted slaps at his scales, brushing the droplets of cloud away, the black dragon dives through the last of the cloud.

And their home stands proud before them, glowing with the endlessly varying blues and greens and white of ice over the steady grey and black and white and brown of stone.

Sunlight glances through the bristling spikes of the king's ice, casting flashes of color out over the sea and into the sky. The shape of the ice is always changing, and so there are always new places for dragons to perch and bask and hide, or to plunge from in hunting stoops or wild dares. Few scars remain to see from the wounds human enemies tore into their home a summer ago. Even the wrecks of broken things and enormous traps have sunk beneath the sand or the waves.

Hiccup taps his claws _smug _against Toothless' shoulders as the black dragon soars over one such broken thing. His beloved-one pulled its teeth one by one, snarling at the snap it threatened even when humans had run away. It will never bite again.

Cries of _recognition _and _welcome _and not a few shrieks of amused _warning _greet them as Toothless beats his wings strongly, sweeping over the snowy sand of the shoreline and charging straight for the mountain stone. He rumbles _ready?_ to Hiccup, and feels his other half wind his paws tighter into the flying-with binding them together, braced steady against Toothless' ribs.

And at the very last instant, Toothless throws himself backwards over his tail, scything down beneath them, and launches them upwards _hard._

Past ice and stone and snowdrifts and the living colors of their jeering, laughing flock-mates, barely glimpsed as blurs and flickers, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _soar straight up, darting through the labyrinth of ice and bursting into the open sky.

Yowls of _showoff!_ and whistles of _disgust _and shrieks of _envy _follow them, startled dragons scattering aside with yelps of _alarm _shading quickly into _recognition_, and Toothless spreads his wings out into an easy hover, purring _laughter smug me smug good good good._

_Now _they are home.

But as the dragon-pair spiral over the peaks and home, as Hiccup shrieks boundless _exhilaration_ back to sky and sea and ice and flock, Toothless sees only one pair of eyes watching them.

Their home is a bright and busy place of green meadows and endless waterfalls, mist like winter breaths twining among the spires and ledges, and the flashing movements of their flock-mates, tumbling and diving and racing and playing, flying all together and pouncing upon each other around the lake at the heart of the nest.

The dragon at the heart of their world turns his gaze up to them, deep and knowing, and Toothless' wings falter as that regard strikes him.

_Uncertainty _thrashes in the eyes of their king.

Everything else falls away, except eyes as vast as the ocean and his Hiccup-_beloved_'s muted, strangled cry of _distress_, and Toothless races down the slope in a flurry of tumbling glides and ragged leaps. His tail scrapes against the vines reaching for the sky. In winter, ice will kill the vines as the king of the nest seals their home against the bitter storms and suffocating cold and endless dark, but vines never remember, and reach always. In the height of summer, they stretch eagerly for the sun.

Not that – not there – no, no – too high – _must-not_ – not there –! The nest is made of places for dragons to perch and sprawl and rest and watch, but Toothless rejects them all, careening down and down and down until his paws strike a low outcropping with a _thud_, clumsy in his haste. Lichen and little plants that cling to the stone, stubborn under the paws of dragons, crush beneath his belly as Toothless throws himself into a fervid grovel of _Majesty_.

At his side, Hiccup crouches low, mewling _apology _and _eagerness_ – _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do not know what they have done wrong! He wails _anguish_ like a hatchling, and Toothless spreads one wing out to cover him, pulling his beloved-self close against his side.

_**Curiosity**_ pulls at them, and the dragon-pair raise their eyes to their king together, letting him search through them for a moment that never ends. An Alpha powerful enough to strike them both to pieces with a single blow – but he would _never, _dragon and dragon-feral believe with perfect faith – paws through their memories very gently, breathing into their thoughts without killing ice.

They have been so very far, and they have seen _wonderful_ things, and they did what they went to do! They did what they are _for! _What can they have done so _wrong_, to upset their king?

One of them or the other thinks it. Engulfed in the eyes of their Alpha, who has always known what they were, with all their adventures splayed out gutted for him, it does not matter.

_**Wonder**_, the king of their world breathes over them. He knows the scent of the traces of power that still linger over them, even after they set aside the flock they briefly led. They are only _Tt-th-ss _and _(click)-phuh _again. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ together and two-who-are-one always, but leaders of dragons no longer.

_**Why?**_ he asks of them, baffled. Why did they return? Why crouch _Majesty _to him, when others would bow _submission _to them? Why did they put a flock that they had fought for, that they had earned, into the care of another?

Toothless writhes beneath his Alpha's confusion, clawing at the stone to explain. Beside him, the distance of a thought, Hiccup whines – a cornered dragon's sound, narrow and cringing.

For his Hiccup-_self, _under the eyes of his king, Toothless scratches up a memory and blazes fiercely through it.

He remembers wild, frantic flights in the deepest nights when the moon stares down derisively, pale and huge, almost-_almost _close enough to catch if they can just fly _fast _enough and _high _enough, when it seems only a leap and a flight away. He remembers soaring up and up and up, streaking past clouds with Hiccup panting _hunger _for flight and the promise of that glow, pressed tight and trembling to Toothless' shoulders, believing nothing can stop them but the moon bitten and bleeding and _told _in their jaws.

He remembers the wild glory of flight, when they fly higher than anyone else in their sky.

But he remembers, too, the grey clouds that close in – they are sneaky clouds, that cannot be seen from below, but they pounce when dragons fly too high. They float across the edges of his eyes, and they lick the breath from his jaws, and they freeze the tips of his wings, and they snatch the wind from beneath him. And through the silence that fills the thinning sky, Toothless can hear his Hiccup-_love_ gasping, slumping in their flying-with even as he strains toward the moon with shaking claws –

_That_ is what it is, for _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ to lead as Alphas! It does not hurt Toothless so, to fly in such high skies, but Hiccup pants breathless there, and Toothless wants _nothing _his Hiccup-self cannot share! They could burn there together, kept and confined and suffering after the battle they are meant for was won, or they could stand aside and carry on their fight.

And the weight of their king's _**confusion **_lifts from their shoulders. In its place, a gentle touch of _**understanding **_licks down their spines like a nesting mother's idle caress when she grooms her sleeping hatchlings clean, and those who have run and played with them as well.

For a while, Toothless can only lie sprawled-out on the shelf of stone, trodden smooth by lifetimes of dragon paws, and nuzzle into Hiccup's fur when his other half collapses against his heaving chest.

_**Approval **_washes over them, the very softest rain that falls like mist.

A tide of _**affection**_ follows it, slow but inexorable, as their Alpha receives them home with joy and relief. He understands that their horizons are wider, and that one day they may fly over those horizons and never return. He would not stop them, if they wanted to go, but – Toothless knows, as immediately as a touch against his scales, and knows that Hiccup knows it too – their Alpha would miss them, if they left his sight forever.

He has always been curious to see what they will do…

_**Little-beloved-ones**_, the king of the nest praises them for their adventures and their triumph, and a trap bigger than anything broken open, _**well done**_.

* * *

Their king has turned away, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are padding down to the shelter of their caves that do not glow, but will always be home, when Toothless stops with one paw in the air, caught by an echo of a thought.

His eyes go wide, and his ear-flaps snap back so hard they _slap _against his skull, and Toothless spins on the tail that wants to pin itself against his belly. He races back up the slope with scrabbling paws, Hiccup crying out _bafflement_ after him.

On the ledge, he bows _Majesty_ once more, pawing at the ground for attention.

_You?_ Toothless cries out, rearing up and pushing towards the inquisitive gaze turned back upon him.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _could not be Alphas to the flock of the underground nest for long. They must wander, but Alphas are bound to their range and their flock.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are trap-breakers, their mother's children running forever in her pawsteps. But not once in their war have they thought of the prisoner who watched over them, held within walls of ice and stone and care.

_You?_ Toothless wonders now, anxious to know if their Alpha longs to be free.

He is answered only with _**love**_, heavier than stone, steadier than heartbeats, brighter than the sun, _**love **_to shake the world.

This is where their king _wants_ to be; he is no captive. He chooses the flock that lives and plays and fights and flies beneath his protection, always.

And to see beyond the horizon?

He has the stories his wandering dragon-pair bring home to him.

Beneath such _**love**_, Toothless can only cower _gratitude_, and flee back to the love of his Hiccup-self, to hide his face in his other half's chest and whimper _embarrassment_ for his presumption, knowing Hiccup will only purr over him and lead him home.

* * *

Toothless contemplates the white dragon on the stone.

She is not Shiver – Hiccup's drawing of _her _peeks around the flowing ledge above the hollow just for them, as if unsure of her welcome.

She is…she is _complicated_, the she-dragon Shiver. Just the memory of how he had felt for her is enough to make Toothless tremble. But to know that it was how she had _made _him feel? That makes him want to leap away and hide in a snowdrift, digging out his own bubble of air for his nose.

And yet…she had smelled good _before_, and Toothless had been drawn to her for more than her scent. But she is far away, and with her flock to fight for.

Perhaps _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ can visit her, one day when it will not threaten a new Alpha to have former ones come calling. Perhaps they can all try again, now that they understand each other, and Shiver can stand beside them, rather than hiding in their shadow. It is always good to have other nests where they are welcomed, even if those nests are not home, and friends to welcome them there.

This white dragon is soft and small and awkward, her eyes too big for her face, itself too big for her body, her wings and tail long enough for another like her to share. She blinks out at their nest as Toothless blinked into hers, eyes wide with wonder and disbelief. The barest reflection of sunlight, glancing into the caves from the open air, licks against her.

Toothless puts his tongue out a little way, tempted to do the same. But he knows she is only chalk on the much drawn-upon stone of their nest.

Hiccup, who put her there many days ago, sleeps at his side, nestled easily against his heart. Toothless can feel him breathing, deep and even, but he knows his beloved-one is not there. Hiccup is wherever they go in dreams, away to an infinite sky streaked with all the colors of winter sky-fires dancing across snow. That sky is rich with the varying breezes of the place with the updrafts, and as warm as the protected shelter of their den beneath the ledge of stone. There, the dragon-pair can fly side by side at last, darting around each other and flowing through the sky on matching, powerful wings, graceful and free.

It does not bother Toothless to dream of Hiccup in a dragon's shape to match his; what Hiccup _looks _like has never mattered. He is always Hiccup; they are _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, two-who-are-one, and they have each other always.

Not all of their dreams are so beautiful. There are many shadows lurking to spring upon them in sleep – but now Hiccup can pounce on Toothless' nightmares and blaze them back to the dark, and Toothless can prowl through Hiccup's, defying their claws with his fangs. Not even sleep has the power to separate them anymore.

Despite all the wonders he has seen, Toothless is pleased to be home. There are no glowing mushrooms here, and the stones do not shine or sing when he touches them, but he does not need them to. He has the protection of the caverns and the welcome of his flock, and the clear and honest light of the sun, and the promise of the sky beyond, is enough.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have the freedom to roam, a purpose that will always need them, and a home to come back to always.

Of all those wonders, the Little One Like Them is the one Toothless is most sorry to have left behind. She was _all _tomorrows, _all _horizons! From the moment he saw her, Toothless had been seized with an overwhelming desire to watch over her as she grew. He wanted to see her find her wings and venture into corners she was not supposed to. He wanted to listen to her to make new sounds and learn to be understood.

She was simple – right without complications or demands – and she had so many complications hidden within, waiting to be found.

Toothless stares at the hatchling on the stone, drawn in chalk, and sighs. There are many hatchlings in their nest, and he and Hiccup are favorite playmates of them all, but there is something about a hatchling Like Them that seizes his soul.

And, flicking one ear-flap back, he wonders…

_Toothless-beloved?_ Hiccup mumbles, stirring as his dragon-half's heartbeat leaps with excitement. _Love-you you what you that wondering anxious sleepy-still what? _The little dragon nudges against Toothless' foreleg, fur brushing the underside of his wing, as he raises his head with a muffled, inquisitive whistle.

_No no no,_ Toothless assures him, sticking his nose beneath his wing to nuzzle Hiccup quiet.

Hiccup squawks _indignation _as ashes smear across his face, and _stop-that!_ when Toothless licks them away.

_Down you there stay yes wait-to-pounce down hide you yes must-do please? please?_ and Toothless promises with a tempting trill _surprise_, some gift or trick for them to share.

He scratches at the packed-down ashes of their nest, breathing in the mingled scents of long-burnt things, abandoned scraps of leather too chewed-on for Hiccup to make anything with, and sleeping dragons. _Good happy very-much-so maybe-so I do you down!_

_You hush,_ Toothless purrs, feeling Hiccup settle down again with a rippling sound of _amusement _and _patience _and _love_.

Safe and home and at his side, Hiccup rarely sleeps with his claws on anymore. The fierce gauntlets are piled atop a half-shredded sheepskin as a warning to any _other _dragons who might steal it. It has been stolen once already, and it is done with being stolen, or so Hiccup had insisted in shrieks and scolding when River Thaw had snatched it from him to chew. Drifts of fur, stripped from the hide, waft around their nest like little pawfuls of wind. And gentle, bare paws tap an unseen _here _against Toothless' side, a reminder and a promise.

_Yes yes yes this yes curious wondering hard!_ Toothless mutters to himself, tail-tip lashing. He stares at the hatchling chalked onto the stone, smooth and pale white, and pretends determinedly through what he wants to do. He imagines that he is following Hiccup, who draws as naturally as Toothless flies – they have both thoroughly envied the other, and tried so hard to share.

With an effort, Toothless tries to imitate what his best-beloved-one would do. He thinks about the future, and he imagines something that _might _be.

Toothless dips his nose into the scuffed-up ashes, breathing warmth into them to make them soft. And he presses his nose, with utmost gentleness, against the stone.

Dark ashes stain the little one's hindquarters grey-black – there!

Toothless traces grey-black down the length of her tail, and across one tailfin, and then the base-fin on the _other _side – like so!

In little taps and tiny nudges, he scatters shadows across her wings and her side, like a dappled forest where darkness dances with the sunlight.

He considers her face, and hesitates, a single fang bared _annoyance. _Finally, he adds a little stripe down the middle of her forehead, as if marking where her mother should lick her when she turns her face up.

Rumbling _uncertain,_ Toothless considers the new-changed hatchling, all black and white. How would he know if she was right? Hiccup always seems to know.

Well, then, Hiccup will know, Toothless reasons, and _hough_s at himself for being very silly.

_Not-so!_ Hiccup objects to this sound, and trails off into snickering _maybe-so…_ Toothless snorts at him, but lifts his wing anyway.

_Look!_

The dragon-feral's long mane of fur is very much ruffled from sleep and Toothless licking him. Even dragons, who are not good at fur or care much for messes, would think he looked a mess, and those who love him would forgive him for it. Toothless, who loves him entirely, thinks freely that he looks a _very _great mess. But he has made a thing too interesting – maybe – for grooming just now.

Hiccup scrubs at his face with one paw and yawns, stretching idly _not-important_, just as if Toothless was not shifting _eager worried confused not-sure you? you? that-there_ beside him.

_Teasing_, Hiccup blinks at him, _affection _deeper and truer than the sea, and looks.

_Oh,_ he says only. It is a short, breathless sound, and all his signals go silent for a heartbeat.

Suddenly _very _anxious, Toothless nudges against his side, head very low. _That?_ Toothless asks, whining. _You see? maybe? you want yes us good yes maybe-so want yes that-there? maybe-so?_

Hiccup reaches out to the baby half-them, one paw tracing her shape delicately. _Afraid_, his gesture says, but there is _joy _in his eyes. _Wonder_, he whispers, the sound thick with _yearning_.

_Yes?_ Toothless asks hopefully, and Hiccup's signals say _yes yes yes_.

One day, if they want it, there could be black-and-white hatchlings, each a pattern their own, for them to watch over. They will teach their hatchlings to fly and play pouncing-games and climb and draw and do anything they want to do. They will stand between their little ones and all the dangers that hunt dragons, and show them how to fight those dangers, too. They will comfort them and praise them and scold them – any hatchlings of _theirs _will need scolding! – and show them how to dance reckless and defiant through the world.

Still unable to look away from the drawing they made together, Hiccup sinks back into Toothless' paws and wraps his forelegs around his dragon-half's neck. Pressed close together, the dragon-pair shudder _laughter _and _longing,_ trembling and chirruping in their matching voices for how _much _they want it.

Toothless glances up, looking for the drawing of Shiver. She peeks into their nest like a dream out of a moonlit forest.

Maybe, one day when they can stand eye to eye, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ will ask if Shiver might want black-and-white hatchlings too.

He thinks she might. When he and Hiccup crouched _Alpha _to her, and told her _she _should lead, if she could rise to it, she had known that she would be proud to share their nest, if there was space for her. But in that moment between heartbeats, none of them had known what to do with that confession, and they had all set it aside together.

Toothless has not forgotten, though, and he knows Hiccup has not either. They no longer stand as Alphas, and no longer hear each other's thoughts inside their skulls. But they have never needed to, to understand each other. They are two-who-are-one.

But one day, perhaps, they will _make _space in their nest for Shiver, and for little dragons as much Like Them as can be.

* * *

Mostly upside down with one of his gauntlets in his teeth, Hiccup paws at the latch. His other claws are set firmly into the matted straw, warm with the summer sun. Close by, the calls of dragons say _contentment _and everyday _irritation_, _here-I-am!_ answering _where-are-you?_ and the yawning cries of easy flight through their own sky.

Even with the _clang _and _clatter _and jangling shouts of human voices calling out beneath those cries, there is nothing to make Hiccup jump and startle here. And Toothless, low and watchful at his heels, will catch him if he falls.

But he will not; the latch is _easy_, only a little awkward for a clever paw to work within, and upside-down or right-way-up makes no difference to a dragon raised in caves and high ledges and steep scrambles. Hiccup closes his eyes in concentration, envisioning the inside of the latch, and reaches –

The latch opens with a _click_, and Hiccup whistles _spite _at it for its defiance as the high door swings open.

_There?_ Toothless asks, peering over his shoulder, paws braced to either side of him. His dragon-heart tips his head on one side _skeptical_, tail _swish_ing over the roof of the nest, and rumbles _reluctance._

_No scared!_ Hiccup assures him, scrambling back up to the roof and rolling over, patting _comfort _against the soft scales of Toothless' belly.

Ducking his head between his forelegs, Toothless blows smoke at him, and Hiccup blows it back at him with a _puff_, and they wrinkle their noses at each other in love and play.

The _pfikingr _nest that stands alone, overlooking the sea, has a door to walk through, and the dragon-pair know how doors work. That door stands open, a rock to hold it back, but when Hiccup creeps into the _pfikingr_ nest, he does so through the window carved out of its side, where no _pfikingr_ could stand.

The little dragon perches on the ledge and looks in.

Inside, the roof slopes down steeply; Hiccup looks up at it, remembers the slope of the outside, and grunts _pleasure _to see them match. The opening breathes out a coil of trapped air like a sleep-held breath, but fresher air blows in from below through the gaping door.

In the space up here, Hiccup recognizes very little. He and Toothless have been inside a _pfikingr _dwelling before, but never when they thought its humans would come back. They had not stayed for long, and they had understood very little of that place, either, except food to steal and ashes to play among.

Toothless leans down from the roof to put one paw onto the ledge, growling _determination,_ and leaps his hindquarters out while his forepaws scrabble for the ledge, twisting. _You in!_ Toothless snorts, pushing Hiccup out of the way as he heaves himself awkwardly through the hole with a single beat of his wings and only a little kicking at the wall.

With barely a crash – Hiccup is good at falling – the little dragon lands on the floor of the _pfikingr _nest. He finds it all wood like a ship to raid, with a hollowness underneath – that makes sense, he understands, already sketching out the shape of this place. They are _up, _and the door is _down, _and there is a hole in the floor with climbing ledges pacing down from it, and below there is sunlight.

First of all, Hiccup scampers over to that hole, flattening himself to the ground on instinct and peeking through it. Motionless, he listens; Toothless stops still, wings folded tight to his back, ready to leap to his defense.

This is a cave, but not _their _cave. Only the opening at their tails, because _pfikingr _do not fly, gives them the courage to explore.

_Fine safe maybe-so here now good no-threat us here look look us brave!_ Hiccup warbles after a moment, when nothing stirs but their heartbeats and the flutter of small-cousin wings outside.

_Good!_ Toothless grunts, but all his spine-fins bristle as he looks around the cave that _pfikingr_ have made. His nostrils flare, and Hiccup whines inside for all the scents he no longer smells through his dragon-self's senses, but only for a moment. He is not sorry to have set down the Alpha's power; like all tools, it only traps his paws when no longer needed. It is not a thing that can be kept in pockets, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have much still to do.

Toothless signals _Alpha here_, which they knew, but he hums _puzzlement _as he tracks a scent to the nest of soft things. Hiccup yawns _sleep _to it, pouncing atop it and whistling _uncertain _as it gives beneath him. He is accustomed to earth and sand, ashes and stone, and the occasional pile of leaves.

There is a scent here of _Uh strrrrTT_, Toothless decides, pawing out a scrap of cloth. Crates and chests fill the space, closed tight with soft things piled atop them. In corners, there are stacks of cut wood, still rough with bark, dried leaves caught among them, their scents a faint trace of the wild. Blades, their sharpness hidden by leather, lie or lean in a pile against the sleeping-nest. Holding-things promise mysteries to explore one by one. This is a place of forgotten things now, set aside and left to sleep.

As Hiccup looks around, trying to understand, he can guess that this might have been _Uh strrrrTT_'s den once, to pad beside her _pfikingr _Alpha and watch.

But before that, he knows now, looking up at the hole in the wall – a hole he _remembers _seeing made, even if it is covered over now – this was _his _den.

It is a hard thing for Hiccup to accept. His earliest memories are of the icebound nest, playing and exploring among a world all of dragons, Toothless at his side, Cloudjumper a patient bulwark between them and anything, stone and cliffs, dim caves and dripping snowmelt, and the dazzling light of the meadows and spires.

He can _barely _imagine a time before Toothless, but only because Toothless remembers, very distantly in his dreams, a time before Hiccup. And Cloudjumper admitted to them, after the dragon-pair first came to this island, that the many-winged dragon had snatched Hiccup and their mother from a _pfikingr_ nest.

This nest. This den. Long ago.

Hiccup had not wanted to believe. But he had felt the truth of that dream in his bones.

It still changes nothing, he decides as Toothless rears up to set his forepaws atop a sturdy holding-thing, sniffing at the wood with his tail waving _interest, _ear-flaps intent. Defiantly, Hiccup sprawls out flat on the floor, daring this place to strike at his underbelly, and purrs when no blow falls, no cage door slams. Toothless licks his face in passing, just a tap of _love-you, _and they are not afraid.

Hiccup flashes his tongue in a dragon's smile at the hole in the wall, as if Cloudjumper still crouched there, reaching out one wing-claw to a hatchling crying out for his own kin.

Always, always, _always, _a dragon.

A rumble of a human voice below startles them both into flailing leaps, and in an instant, Toothless is backing towards the way out with Hiccup crouched at his side, his dragon-self's tail curved around him, tail-fins spread. They snarl at the sound in unison, silently, fangs bared and spines bristling, and Hiccup crooks his claws _ready_, poised to defend or attack.

_That?_ Toothless blinks, one ear-flap ticking forward at the sound. It is deep and powerful and confident, even as it snorts _resignation_, and it –

It is familiar.

_Careful,_ Hiccup signals, crouching low. Every lesson of his wild upbringing tells him to _run, run!_

But he holds his ground, and Toothless, trusting him, stands with him. They have faced a _sickbadwrongthing_ that was an eater of dragons, and a killer-of-all foaming at the mind, and the dizzying impossibility of a realm beneath the sea, and so many more dangers besides.

The _pfikingr_ treading heavily up the climbing ledges, head low beneath the horns he wears so that all the dragon-pair can see of him at first is his red-grey fur…is only a man.

Hiccup still cannot understand the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_'s words, but he understands the tone in his voice. It says worn-thin _irritation,_ wry _amusement_, and determined _endurance_, like a dragon finding the very good sun-patch he prefers occupied by others.

The _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ raises his head up through the hole in the ground, eyes wandering to the open window.

When he sees _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_, as they know he will – they are not Shiver, to fade – Hiccup expects him to stare and startle, to cry out at dragons trespassing in his nest, even dragons he knows. Hiccup knows the shape of _pfikingr_ stares: their mouths open, and they go trembling-still, and they make small _alarm_ and _fear _sounds. Their faces change color, but not like Shiver; they go pale.

Instead, the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ blinks at them, and _hmph_s, just a breath and an amused grunt. Beneath his fur, his face smiles very small and twisted, even as his eyes soften _sadness_. But he looks at the half-cornered dragons without surprise, and his small signals do not say _attack _or _retreat_, or anything at all. He looks like he expected to find them there, and Hiccup hunches his shoulders _annoyed_. What bait has the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ set to _expect _them here, as if it were not remarkable at all?

Nodding his head _yes yes yes_ as humans do, he looks past the frozen dragon-pair at nothing at all, and he smiles more, unfamiliar sounds rumbling _fond _in a churning rockfall of words.

Toothless draws Hiccup back with him as the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ clomps up a few more ledges, pushing aside many fallen cloths where small-cousins have made a nest. Tiny, shed scales spill from the cloths when the _pfikingr_ picks them up and shakes them, folding them again with a mutter of _Uh strrrrTT_.

_Strange,_ Toothless says with a glance, yearning towards the open air outside. The _pfikingr _Alpha has never _ignored _them before.

_Us here yes him look us you see? here certain-sure,_ Hiccup signals back, murmuring _puzzled _as he considers his paws. They have not faded to match the ground, and Toothless is as dark as a deep forest midnight.

The _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK _can see them. Even now, as the dragon-pair watch him sit on the ground with his legs bent awkwardly, in that way that humans _cannot _leap from, he watches them back. But for the first time, the big _pfikingr_'s body does not say _want want catch grab take want!_ His signals say only _contentment_ to see them there.

Once, he starts to reach out towards them, but then he pulls his paw back with a shake of his head, as if reminding himself of something. _No, no_, he says, but to himself, and his eyes drift past them with a soft smile.

With their shoulders pressed tight together, Hiccup feels Toothless relax slightly. Human paws outstretched to them have rarely meant good things, and they are both happier when they can see the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ will not try to touch them. _Good good maybe-careful unsure safe-though? you say?_

_Trust_, Hiccup asks of his dragon-heart in a single clear glance, and Toothless purrs back to him _always_.

And as the dragon-pair step cautiously out of their defensive coils, stretching out on the ground and staring around curiously, the _pfikingr _he who was their mother's mate talks to them for a long time.

His eyes often look at nothing at all, which Hiccup, to whom glances are speech, finds unnerving. But he smiles, even if there is _sadness _in it. He speaks to the dragons in his nest, but he asks nothing of them. He does not lean towards Hiccup as if longing to touch. He looks at Toothless directly, without fear.

Instead, his shoulders are relaxed, his body calm. His voice ambles, slow and easy and affectionate, speaking to them as if they could understand, but Hiccup can catch only a few words. Their names, as _pfikingr_ say them. _Drakkkn_, one of the few sounds Hiccup has always recognized. Their mother's name, _Aka_. Little words, the sounds for _here _and _yes _and _good _and _want_, and big words, the sounds for _mother _and for _love_.

Hiccup scrapes together some of those words, and tries.

"Herrrrr?" he asks, grimacing at the shape of _pfikingr_ sounds on his tongue. He paws at the air _look-at-me_, and gestures at the wooden cave.

_Me_, he signals, tapping against his chest because that is how _Uh strrrrTT_ says _me_. And he whistles a question, signing _small _close to the ground.

_I was here, when I was small?_

The _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ startles, blinking in shock, and shakes himself. _Now _his face goes pale, and his jaw tight. _Surprise_ and _disbelief_ and _confusion_ and _hurt_ roll through his signals like storm clouds churning, and a deep, surging _sadness_ that twists out into a human smile like Hiccup wringing seawater from the softer layers of his scale-skins. It is not a smile with teeth showing – Hiccup will never like the way _pfikingr_ smile – but the expression makes the dragon-feral want to whimper and hide.

_Yes_, he says, and nods a human _yes _as well. He hesitates, and looks at his paws, and puts them together.

He holds them against his heart as if cradling something precious, and very small.

Hiccup remembers the dream of that, remembers the sound of his heartbeat, the scratch of redder fur against new-soft paws, the smell of his _being there._ He remembers safety, and love like tides.

Dropping them again, the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ sighs, lowering his head. When he looks up again, his shoulders slumped, he reaches out a paw in some gesture.

And on impulse, Hiccup leaps, catching that paw in his own.

The _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_'s paw is much larger than his, and so wickedly sharp dragon claws curl around only part of it, but Hiccup's claws are part of him, and he knows how to be gentle. He can crouch balanced on his hindquarters, ready to leap away if he needs to, and still signal _wait._

At his back, Toothless surges to his feet with a yelp of _surprise_, but Hiccup forces _gentle _into all his signals, trying to understand.

_Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ dream of hatchlings Like Them, some day when they are ready, to raise and protect and to care for. And they will fight all the world for their hatchlings, they will be fierce and powerful and clever, but –

Sometimes fierce and powerful and clever is not enough. They live in a world that tries to kill them every day, and every death their flock mourns could be theirs. The dragon-pair have grieved for playmates and friends and guardians, too many to remember, and each has been a wound.

To lose a _hatchling_ – a hatchling of their own –

Hiccup cannot imagine how much that would hurt. Could it be _worse _than _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ torn apart? The scream of a nesting mother whose hatchling will never wake again, or whose little one has been brought home bloody and cold in a flock-mate's claws, is a sound too terrible for dragons to flee. The flock can only cower and cry beneath it as she wails. Imagining a hatchling of theirs taken so, even before that hatchling _is_…it chokes screams into Hiccup's throat.

He cannot be the little one the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ lost; he is _(click)-phuh_, a dragon and half of a whole, and he is _happy _with who and what he is. He is as right as he can be. Together he and Toothless _matter_; they protect their own and they wander the world to protect others. They love, and they are loved.

Perhaps he never was that little one. But he can understand that the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ grieves for the little one who was not.

"_Isssss,_" says Hiccup, as close as he can come.

Toothless does not need to growl _mine! he mine you no no no I bite!_ but Hiccup can hear him bristling very fiercely, wings hissing across his scales as he tenses to leap.

The _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ is staring at Hiccup's paw on his, his only movement his jaw opening in a silent gasp of surprise. _There _is the Thing That Humans Do! At last, something the man does makes sense.

As if the sight of those paws together hurts deeply, he looks away again, off at nothing at all. He asks a question of no one, with the sound _here?_

After a moment, he smiles, his eyes very bright.

"Here," he says to a still-wary Hiccup, and carefully closes his paw. It is not tight enough that Hiccup feels _trapped_, exactly, but he takes comfort in knowing that if he is wrong, if the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ does grab roughly, his claws are sharp and his other half is ready to fight for him.

_Oh_, Hiccup sees with a quavering whine of _discomfort_, there is ocean in the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ too!

With a gulp, their mother's mate lifts his other paw, asking a question. Hiccup watches it out of the side of his eyes uncertainly, but he does not move – much – as the man rests it very, _very _gently on his scaled shoulder.

When Hiccup does not snarl and snap at him, the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ strokes his hand carefully down the dragon-feral's side, brushing past the wing furled against his spine-fins. Just for a moment, until Hiccup cannot fight down the whine of _let go!_ Not even for imagined hatchlings one day will he be _grabbed_ by _pfikingr_, even if they _were _his mother's mate once!

The _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_ lets him go, and Hiccup sidles back to Toothless' side, shuddering _enough_.

As a gust of wind blows in through the opening, tumbling through the nest to race out of the door below, the man blinks many times, scrubbing his paws over his face and dragging them across his fur. Toothless, licking Hiccup all over to put his scent back right, snorts _hey!_ over his little partner's back, just in case the man is imitating them.

But with a sigh and a trembling laugh over words neither dragon understands, he reaches out to _tt-th-ss_, too.

Eyes narrowed, Toothless considers the outstretched paw, rumbling _strange not-like unsure maybe worry you-though silly you why? promise you you later-promise you say yes! me-though unsure you-do Hiccup-mine yes maybe –_

Resentfully, but always willing to show that anything that _Hiccup _can do, _Toothless_ can do too, the black dragon taps his nose snap-quick against the _St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK_'s paw, _thump_.

_There!_ Toothless snorts, crouching _you up_ to Hiccup, and paws _let's-go!_ at the ground.

When he spreads his wings, the _pfikingr _cave is far too small to hold them, and the hole in the wall just right to let them go.

* * *

And on the sands of a familiar shoreline, a _pfikingr _she stands facing a dragon.

The long-fang dragon paces angrily, tossing her head and scything her tusks through the air. Her heavy paws slip beneath her, unable to grip the shifting ground, so that all her movements end in little lurches. With a bellow of _pain_, she sits down with a _whump _that sprays little traces of sand all over, scratching at the back of her neck and the underside of her jaw. When she kicks a healing wound, she yowls.

Watching from a new-fallen stone, built up into a barricade that cuts off the forest from the rocky shore, Hiccup flinches _sympathy _with her. He recognizes her as one of the Starving Man's hunters, but she is not so fearsome here, stumbling and crying. Her wings tremble as she spreads them, ready to flee.

Nothing keeps her here, but where else does she have to go? Hiccup remembers all too keenly being trapped on this stretch of shore, roaming among its shallows and climbing across its stones, feeling the break in Toothless' wing like his own wound. Unable to escape, they had held a wary truce between tolerating the _pfikingr _she who came to speak to Hiccup and vanishing to find a better place to hide. And there had been something _bad _in the air…

They had stayed, and healed, and hurt, and fled, and now another pair of dragons paces out the confines of the shore.

_Easy_, _Uh strrrrTT_ says, her voice low. She does not crouch and make herself small, as she did when she spoke to _(click)-phuh _and, sometimes, _tt-th-ss_-_beloved_. Before these dragons, she stands with every signal declaring an Alpha's _confidence_, her shoulders firm beneath the spill of her long bright mane over a fur cloak. It looks very warm, but too heavy to fly with, and besides, Hiccup thinks she would notice if he tried to steal it.

Even if she is very busy trying to feed two baffled dragons who do not understand why she is here, or why they are.

_This?_ Toothless asks, and Flies-in-Storms flutters her wings _proud._

_She strrrrTT mine good mine brave I fly that danger-there careful-warning! Look she! she there!_

Neither of the long-fang dragons, snarling _resentment_, takes the fish from _Uh strrrrTT_'s paw, but they do not charge her, flaming, either. Their tails stay arched high, but do not tense to strike. The hurting she-dragon turns away, ignoring the _pfikingr_ she, and her flock-mate piles himself into a heap of _unhappiness _and folds his wings over his head.

With a sigh Hiccup recognizes _very _well as _giving-up_, _Uh strrrrTT_ sets down the fish in her paws and scatters more from a holding-thing, strewing them across the sand. With a shrug, she turns away. Keeping to the drier ground close to the cliff faces and the stones there, and keeping a wary eye on the sulking long-fang dragons, she slogs back across the shore to her friend.

This is a _pfikingr_ she Hiccup and Toothless do not know, although they have come to recognize many. Before they came here, as they wandered _Buh-rrrrrrKK_ from the sky and the shadows, they watched _pfikingr_ building a nest where once a great hoard of metal had been. The hoard is gone now, but perhaps if humans make a den for it, it will come back.

And they listened to the stories their dragon-cousins told them, gathering in sprawling flocks across rooftops and cliff ledges, bounding easily across the tangled maze of perches that humans have made between their dens. Toothless is not sure all of them were for dragons, but if dragons can climb them, surely dragons _may_, until they fall over.

Then dragons were nowhere nearby, ever, and have never even _seen _such perches. What are perches?

Humans are always fixing things, anyway. Today, they are fixing the roof of the biggest nest of all, which Telltale and Fish Breath Always are pleased about. That is their favorite place to sleep.

The dragons of _Buh-rrrrrrKK_ told the wandering dragon-pair stories of leaving and coming back again, a hiding trick to let a predator run by with its jaws clean and its belly empty. And now they have come home again, they say. This is still a better home than any of them remember, and if they want to wander away and join their kin living far from human eyes, they can.

But small humans would cry for them, if they did, and the crying of human hatchlings is very loud, Hurry-and-Hustle had confided, heads bobbing. And big humans are always doing interesting things to watch, Sunset Stretch had laughed, and all the flock had whistled agreement, especially as a pair of very strange _pfikingr _had run past just then with their two-heads-cousin friend/s bounding behind them, and a shout of outrage trailing them all.

This has become their home. They are part of a flock all mixed together, with a _pfikingr _Alpha, but an Alpha who listens to dragons, who led them away and then led them back again when it was safe.

And there are hatchlings here now – and then there had been nothing for it but for Hiccup and Toothless to go and see, swept along in a chattering flock to spring very suddenly upon a ship upturned in a protected cove, only to scatter laughing when a pack of rock-skin cousins had burst out to defend their nest.

In the chaos, Hiccup had spotted Talking Fish in the white sand below the ship, crouched over something with his paws over his head. After the storytellers had scattered with the rock-skin cousins roaring insults after them, the dragon-pair had landed lightly and whistled a tentative greeting.

Talking Fish is a friendly human, only sometimes he is _too _friendly. He charges like a rock-skin cousin with his tongue lolling all smiles, forgetting that heavy paws can crush.

But he had called out _joyful _to see them, and eagerly showed Hiccup what he had been protecting – a rock-skin hatchling wriggling unafraid in his shadow, and a drawing of Shiver for his collection of many drawings.

Hiccup had not been able to resist fixing it, just a little to sharpen the edges of her tailfins, but he had not drawn her faded. Dragons need _some _tricks to keep, even from friendly humans.

But _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do not know this human at all. She is taller than _Uh strrrrTT_, her face another shape, and her fur is dark. She stands _determined _with one paw on her hip, watching _Uh strrrrTT_ protectively, pale eyes intent, and her signals say _stubborn _very loud. But they say _affection_, too, and from this Hiccup can understand that _Uh strrrrTT_ and the dark-furred she flock together.

_Yes!_ Flies-in-Storms says when he asks, a whistle and a glance _uncertain_. _She yes strrrrTT good together-good protect happy happy together-they yes like very-much-so she good! she up she fly me me me I do!_

Blue-dappled dragon and dragon-pair are perched all together on the new tumble of stone, Toothless with his belly against a smooth plane, wings half-folded, and Hiccup on his shoulders. The stretch of shore below the cliffs is…not somewhere they wish to return. It was a nest-for-now, and one they had been glad to leave.

A little way below, the two _pfikingr_ talk together. The New She pats _Uh strrrrTT_ in _reassurance_, and _Uh strrrrTT_ laughs, setting her paw on her friend's shoulder. They stand close together, easy together.

_No, no_, says _Uh strrrrTT_, small signals saying _undaunted_. Perhaps she knows now, Hiccup speculates, sprawling along his beloved-self's spine, that just because dragons do not talk back to her, it does not mean they are not listening.

They are so busy talking to each other that neither of them looks up until _Uh strrrrTT _says _Hiccup _and then _Toothless_, just a few sounds in a torrent of many, many more. Humans talk so much and see so little.

Amused at an ambush he did not even have to plan, Hiccup sits up on Toothless' shoulders and whistles _here!_ very brightly.

_Uh strrrrTT_ startles, her head snapping up to stare at them, and in an instant, all her signals ring out clearly.

A glance had been enough, when _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ had brought the Starving Man to her. However their names came into the hungry mouth of their enemy, _Uh strrrrTT_ had not betrayed them.

It has taken a long time for the dragon-pair to trust her, but they are learning, one test at a time.

Here at the shore, she is surprised to see them, but she is truly and sincerely happy. There is no malice in her eyes, no shrinking-away in her body. She hums _delighted _through all of her, even if _chagrin _echoes counterpoint, and Hiccup purrs _satisfaction _at this. It is a good joke to be here when she spoke of them, when she did not know.

* * *

_C'mere you_, _Uh strrrrTT_ gestures, but not to them.

Instead, she reaches out a paw for her friend, beckoning her closer, but the New She is staring up at them, an _oh _in her mouth. Hiccup does not recognize her words, but he can understand her signals and her voice very clearly. She says, breathlessly, that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are wonderful, and she turns on _Uh strrrrTT_ scolding as playmates scold each other, chirping with delight to see a new thing, and joy to be with her friend.

_Uh strrrrTT_ fends her off with paws and sounds and squashed-up faces, grouching and laughing.

Toothless flicks his ear-flaps back _surprise_, to see her play so freely. The _pfikingr_ she who pestered them, summers ago, snarling at her fear with every heartbeat and tugging on her fur when they did not do what she wanted – had she had anyone to play with? The dragon-pair had not even known if _pfikingr_ could play.

_Good she good yes told-you-so good_, Flies-In-Storms chirps, thumping her spiked blue tail _certain-sure_ against the stone. Toothless smiles a dragon's smile up at her. The flock here has no dragon Alpha to lead them, but _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are always amazed at how _brave_ Flies-In-Storms is, and how willing to try.

The New She catches her friend's paw anyway, and now she leads _Uh strrrrTT_ closer to the stone where the dragon-pair rest. The humans do not climb up, and Hiccup and Toothless do not climb down, but they can talk to each other, as much as they ever can.

_Uh strrrrTT_ waves her paws _look_, her face pleased.

_Hiccup,_ she says in the wrong way humans say it, and _Toothless_ – but she stops with a _snort_, and gestures at them. _You, _she signs. _You do._

Hiccup bares his fangs at her; he has far better games to play now than her game of sounds. They have _so _far left to go…

_(click)-phuh_, he answers anyway, and _tt-th-ss_ for his dragon-heart, who purrs _beloved_ to him with adoring eyes.

The dark-furred she makes a little noise of delight, shaking her head _amazement_.

_Her?_ Hiccup asks, chirruping. Flies-In-Storms likes the New She, and _Uh strrrrTT_ who leapt upon their enemy with blows and snarls likes the New She, and so _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ will consider her, at least.

Grinning, _Uh strrrrTT_ reaches into a pocket, turns to her friend, and presents her with a slightly squashed plant. The tall sprig holds many little purple blossoms, and Hiccup recognizes it: he has seen fields and fields of it before, creeping back after fires burn across the tundra and surviving even under the snow. The flowers smell like distance and the wind and rolling hills.

The dark-furred she takes it with a yelp, half amused and more disbelieving, scolding _Uh strrrrTT _without enthusiasm and rolling her eyes. With the air of one much put-upon, she holds it in both paws before her chest and sighs.

_Huh-thrrrr_, the golden-furred Alpha says, pointing to the plant and then to her friend.

Hiccup _whuff_s at the sound without enthusiasm, annoyed. There are too many _pfikingr _words that sound like _uh-thrrrr_, and they cannot all be the same. He understands perfectly the finest shades of meaning in dragon sounds, but human voices will always slip from beneath his claws with only scraps of fur caught between them.

Instead, he gestures at plant and _pfikingr _she and makes the sound that the plant makes: _shwwshhwwshhww_.

_Uh strrrrTT_ blinks, surprised, and rolls one paw: _say that again?_

_Shwwshhwwshhww!_ Hiccup repeats firmly.

The _pfikingr _she _Shwwshhwwshhww _finds this very, very funny, and _Uh strrrrTT _throws her paws into the air with a grunt of _drakkknns!_

Neither of them can say it, although they do try, and Hiccup grunts _so there!_ to Toothless, who yawns affectionate _mockery_ at him. Sounds are easy when they are _proper _sounds, that sound like what they mean!

_Shwwshhwwshhww! _says Flies-In-Storms, and shrieks with pride.

* * *

Somewhere out there, there is a little white dragon defying all her world has ever told her. Somewhere else, there is a dragon who only remembers cages, standing up to make a world without them.

Somewhere, there is a dragon nest protected by ice, sheltering those it raised and the lost ones and strays who have come to call it home. Somewhere else, there are endless fields of heather, smelling like the sky.

Somewhere, there are dragons at home in a human village, and Vikings who might yet learn to fly. Somewhere else, there is a man who saw his world end, watching the impossible happen every day.

Somewhere, there are two women willing to change _everything_, if that is what they must do to protect their own and make a better world.

Somewhere else, there is a man who was always a dragon, and a black dragon who was always his heart, two-who-are-one and never to be parted.

Somewhere there are traps to break. Somewhere there are stories to tell. Somewhere, there is a future to find, and if _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss _cannot find it, they will just have to make their own.

Nothing has stopped or separated them before, and nothing ever will.

And elsewhere, beyond the lands and seas and skies they know?

Hiccup and Toothless have work to do, and they have a whole world not yet seen to explore.

So into the boundless sky they go, chasing the horizon and the turning midnight stars.

* * *

–_end– _

* * *

**Afterword:**

I don't even know what to say.

Over five years ago, just after the second HTTYD movie came out and I was absolutely, rapturously in love with this fantastic universe I'd finally found, I started talking to a fellow fanauthor called **Raberba girl. **As we discussed what the future of Berk could and/or should look like, she said that rather than being chief, because Astrid was clearly better-suited, Hiccup would be happier as a crazy feral dragon boy. She meant "free-range researcher". I saw, like I was remembering him, the _utterly _feral, thinks-he's-a-dragon, might-not-be-wrong wild boy I've been writing ever since.

I've tried to pace as close to canon as I can, using the pieces Dreamworks gave me and extrapolating from them, but staying within the bounds of the world we saw on screen and the gravity of the plot, pulling events back into similar orbits even after you hit them with a comet or two. Some things that happen _have _to happen under certain conditions, but the world can change around them in what I hope have been interesting ways.

And then _The Hidden World_ came along.

And I said, "No."

**No. No. No.**

_Freefall_ is my _No_.

If you're interested in how this story came to be, and some of the background information behind it, as well as the soundtrack I've been assembling all along with suggestions from some of your fellow readers (story soundtracks are my procrastination, but it's a good playlist!), please check out the bonus content at deviant art dotcomslash le-letha/journal/HTTYD-Freefall-Extras-809704550. You do not need a deviantART account to view this content, and I guarantee all the links are not only safe to click, but safe for work.

It's been a long road from me playing with a weird little oneshot no one would read – the characters weren't even speaking in sentences, after all! – to here.

**Thank you for coming all this way with me. **I love you all.

Fair flight.

**Le'letha**


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